BY EDDIE ROBERTS
“When I was born, the angels rained tiny bells upon the roof – they were actually shell cases falling from the guns of WW2 fighters in the Kent skies high above. After the war, my family moved from the devastation of Gravesend on the Thames to the relatively untouched peace of West Cornwall.”
The Cartoonist John Nash is one sharp cookie. (Not to be confused with his son, the celebrated digital artist and computer game inventor, John Vincent Nash).
Disobedient enough to point out the myriad of untruths that those seeking to ban trophy hunting espouse, John is well-versed in ARSE (Animal Rights Speak) and can spot a scam when he sees one.
He’s been writing for Country Squire Magazine for a few years now and has a considerable following for talking sense and delivering humorous put-downs. As I interview him in his Cornish kitchen, I spot a pile of notes within arm’s distance, and they are replete with diagrams and scribbles like a Da Vinci notebook.
I ask John where he learned to draw:
“I learned to draw and cartoon by practising during boring Sunday church sermons in the Cornish fishing village where I grew up. It is still a hive of artists. I was taught screen printing by Denis Mitchell, who was an assistant to Barbara Hepworth, and when I emigrated as a £10 POM to South Africa in the early 1960’s on the MV Stirling Castle, drawing made many friends on board.”
What did you do when you arrived in Africa?
“As soon as I arrived in Africa, I set up a screen-printing studio, The Printing Dog, in Benoni, where the National Police Driving School was situated. The young police drivers used to test their skills against the local youths, dicing with American V8’s through the middle of town. Today, you can’t imagine driving cars that did 12 miles to the gallon, but then petrol only cost 35¢ a gallon! Hot cars meant there was a thriving market for cartoon tee shirts. So, I readily obliged. But it was difficult making a living from art in Africa, so I got a job in a construction drawing office, intending to create “artists’ impressions” of proposed contracts, but soon moved into complex Gantt charts and ended up training in project management. Within ten years, I was an associate in a consulting practice, up to my ears in PERT and Critical Path programming, busy building skyscrapers, hotels and large shopping centres, my drawing relegated to spare time cartooning, odd commissions and an absorbing hobby.”
I always took you to be more of an outdoorsman than an indoors draughtsman?
“True, I jumped on that ship to see Africa, so I left the urban construction industry and went bush trading and prospecting, pegging claims and collecting bits and pieces all over the eight countries of southern Africa, bringing back skins, quills, seeds, carvings, artwork and gemstones to city tourist shops and exporting, mainly to the USA. It was a great time, including designing enamelled jewellery, beadwork, carvings, latch hook canvases, batik, soapstone and other marketable products made by villagers in remote places. The business grew into a small group of companies, requiring lots of design, etching, screen printing, hot foiling and offset litho. We even made film posters for the local film and video hire market. They were really happy, creative times.”
And then you returned to Blighty?
“Eventually, with a family, I returned to Cornwall and carried on drawing and cartooning while making a living, mainly in the production of timber items for the construction industry and also boat fitting, that in turn grew into one of the UK’s foremost camera nest box companies. Now I am retired, still in West Cornwall, I have been able to return to writing, cartooning and occasional illustration.”
To see more of John’s cartoons, please visit @cartoonspan on Twitter.
