Norman Thelwell: A Cartoonist in Wartime

Norman Thelwell (1923–2004) was a cartoonist well known for his humorous illustrations of ponies and horses. Over the course of his career he published over thirty books and produced thousands of cartoons, including for ‘Punch’ magazine. For the last 25 years of his life he lived in the Test Valley, near Romsey, in Hampshire.

Above image: Taking it easy aft © Thelwell Estate

Thelwell joined a dockside office in Liverpool as a junior clerk after leaving school in 1939 at the age of 16. He was just marking time and on his 18th birthday in May 1941, he received his call-up papers for war service. Like many others he began a protracted regime of training in various parts of the country including Blackpool for basic training, Watford where he joined the East Yorkshire Regiment, Margate, the Isle of Wight, Hursley in Hampshire and Scotland. To preserve his sanity, he carried his sketchbooks everywhere and drew constantly almost everything he saw of interest. Previously he had found figure drawing difficult but now ‘with humans everywhere I found a new compulsion to record turmoil and movement’. In some of these drawings we see the beginnings of humour starting to appear.