A childhood hobby, revisited

Certain things stay with you from your childhood, and one of my fond memories is sitting at the “big table” with my Pops, drawing cartoons. If I had known then, that we were laying the preparation for my future life, I wouldn't have believed you. Mainly because I was so rubbish! My Pops, however, was brilliant:

We had a book called “Walt Disney’s Giant Story Book”, and as a child it felt massive! Inside, were all the best Disney stories, complete with cartoons on every page. The story list included my favourites: Thumper and Bambi, Lady and The Tramp, Donald Duck, and Dumbo the elephant. The only thing missing was good old Mickey Mouse!

At bedtime, we would have one of the stories read to us by Mum or Pops, and then some evenings or weekends, I would sit with Pops and he would teach me how to copy the characters from the book, and sometimes invent our own characters. I was utterly rubbish at it, but I loved doing it, and without those fun sessions with my Pops showing endless patience with my trials and errors, I wouldn’t be a dog cartoonist today.

Pops was brilliant at it, and I still have his cartoons that he copied from the book, and the book itself, today. Both the cartoons and the book are over 40 years old now, but just one look at them takes me back to those good old days.

I remember feeling frustrated that I couldn’t get my hand to do what I could see, but as Pops repeatedly told me “Keep practicing, and it will come”. Of course, as a child feeling the frustrations in the moment, they just feel like empty words. Don't tell him now, but he was so right, and even now when I’m having a panicked “AAAAH! I can’t draw!” day, his wise words come back to me from those days, along with other wisdom such as “take a break and come back to it”.

When I see the Disney films that are released these days, they feel so completely different to the earlier cartoons of Donald, Mickey and Thumper. I will always maintain that the oldies are the best.