{"id":186,"date":"2010-11-04T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T10:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/gathering-a-collection-of-giles-cartoon-annuals-has-started-again\/"},"modified":"2010-11-04T10:00:27","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T10:00:27","slug":"gathering-a-collection-of-giles-cartoon-annuals-has-started-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/gathering-a-collection-of-giles-cartoon-annuals-has-started-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Gathering A Collection Of Giles Cartoon Annuals Has Started Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am collecting Giles annual cartoon books. I started a few years ago before we emigrated Down Under and then didn’t start again until a few months ago. His cartoons were the source of a lot of my background information of twentieth Century history as he pictured the goings on in the news, often bringing down convoluted stories into a simple picture with a pointed caption mocking the situation. He almost always drew the little man, bringing the story down to the everyday level that anyone would be able to comprehend. He may be cooking at the bbq<\/a> and passing a comment on BSC or other food fright or sitting watching the football and giving his take on a sports scandal.<\/p>\n

The key to a great number of his cartoons was the Giles family. This consisted of Mr Giles, the archetypal ordinary man who came from anywhere suburbia, middle aged, long married and long suffering at the hands of his progeny. These were mainly a pair of teenage daughters who, through the years dragged home a series of unsuitable unsuitables who changed from teddy boys to mods and rockers, hippies, punks to new romantics. His eldest son Ernie and his mate Larry from next door who are around eight and bring all sorts of havoc. Larry is the type of boy who would attach a turbo charger onto a gas bbq<\/a> and sit back and watch with a camera while somebody went to light it. Then there is Uncle George and Aunt Vera and their baby who live with them. George never speaks, just sits in the corner and smokes his pipe which steams like a charcoal bbq. Vera always has a sniffle and is holding a tissue to her nose and bottles of remedies around her. The baby is always being tortured for experiments by Ernie and Larry. They couple be in the background at a family bbq with the baby on a spit roast and Larry about to set the fire below.<\/p>\n

Greatest of all is Grandma, the overpowering mother figure of the family attired in black with an ostrich head umbrella near to hand with which to thrash any miscreant who get too close. These may include jockeys whose horse she wrongly backed or a shopkeeper who sold a malfunctioning product. She is frequently the one speaking the punchline or the centre of the story, often as she comments upon a story she’s reading in the Daily or Sunday Express. An example would be from the sixties when the paper ran a series of features on sex for youngsters, she is seen reading it and laughing mightily with Ernie saying to his mother “Grandma says she could have written a better strip than that when she was a girl”. She is regularly the butt of the boys’ mischief, perhaps being served with a red hot coal from the charcoal bbq in a sandwich being delivered by Larry.<\/p>\n

No matter the news, from the immediate post war era through the social revolutions and evolutions in society, government and whatever else, the cartoons of Carl Giles retained an irresistible humour bringing the biggest crises down to the understanding of the man in the street. The Giles family, whether at a family event like a camping holiday, going out in Mr Giles new boat or assembled around the gas bbq at a party, regularly gave the end product of the joke.<\/p>\n

The annuals are still published to this day, though Giles himself died in 1995, and still contain previously unpublished cartoons and collecting them all is a worthy ambition.<\/p>\n

For the best in gas barbeques<\/a> visit 2bbq<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am gathering Giles annuals. I began a number of years ago before we emigrated to Oz and then didn’t pick it up again until a few months ago. His cartoons were the source of a lot of my background information of twentieth Century history as he drew the goings on in the news, often dissembling down convoluted stories into a simple picture with a humourous caption mocking the situation. He almost always illustrated the ordinary man, busting the story down to the ordinary level that anybody will understand. He could be cooking at the bbq<\/a> and giving a comment on BSC or other food scandal or sitting watching the football and giving his version on a sports scandal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[321,74,322],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-container-gardening-ideas","tag-bbq","tag-container-gardening-ideas-2","tag-gas-bbq"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/containergardeningexpert.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}