Real Work: THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS - Bill Tidy
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Your support makes all the difference.Cartoonist, writer and broadcaster Bill Tidy, 65, is best known for his drawings in Punch, The Cloggies in Private Eye, Radio 4's Fourth Column and as an after-dinner speaker.
I've always been able to draw, but when I started, my work was childish and undisciplined. After coming out of the army I got a job in a Liverpool advertising agency. There was a fellow there who was selling gags to Men Only and Lilliput and this inspired me to have a go and start sending in cartoons, pocket funnies, eventually getting one in the Daily Mirror. I got my first cartoon in Punch in 1961 and my biggest break came in the mid-Sixties when Private Eye accepted The Cloggies strip, which I'm hoping Yorkshire TV will turn into a series.
I'm inquisitive, but only in my work. I see things that others don't see. For instance I've just done a series of drawings for a snooker programme and got the idea for a series about playing snooker in the dark. This got me thinking about who'd be good at this so there's one of Count Dracula playing snooker with a guy holding a torch.
If it wasn't for my TV work and after-dinner speaking I'd find it difficult to survive as a published cartoonist. I spread the net, do posters, packaging, cards, anything. The advice I'd give to aspiring cartoonists is to draw a razor across your throat. You can teach people how to use space but I wouldn't know how to start today. It's like teaching people to fly but there're no airfields.
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