The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman

Product Information

His first work was in advertising, but he soon began to win acclaim as a children's book illustrator as well as teaching illustration at Brighton College of Art. He came to public attention when he illustrated a book of nursery rhymes, The Mother Goose Treasury, in 1966, winning a Kate Greenaway medal. Since then he has become one of the most innovative and popular author-illustrators.

Briggs’ final book, Time for Lights Out (2019), is a poignant, funny and honest exploration of the experience of ageing and reaching the end of life in the form of a patchwork of verse, drawings and random thoughts. People often ask about the technique in (The Snowman)... it is done entirely with pencil crayons, with no line in pen or pencil and no washes of ink or watercolour.'

Prompted by the poor quality of some of the novels he was illustrating, he produced his own, The Strange House (1961), an adventure story, and gave it to an editor friend hoping for some constructive criticism. To Briggs’ astonishment, the editor had it published. Elsewhere, away from the mainstream press, among the other British creators to respond to Thatcherism were more than a few ‘neurotic boy outsiders’, to quote Grant Morrison’s diaristic, part-autobiographical character study, St. Swithin’s Day. This comic stands as one of Morrison’s most quietly effective and affecting pieces. Even though [spoiler alert] his first-person narrator does not brandish a gun in his assassination attempt, instead pointing an imaginary ‘hand-gun’ made by his fingers and thumb, a symbol for the power of the imagination, disgruntled Members of Parliament raised questions in the House of Commons and The Sun newspaper hammered the comic book under the headline ‘Death To Maggie Book Sparks Tory Uproar’. Most of my ideas seem to be based on a simple premise: let's assume that something imaginary - a snowman, a Bogeyman, a Father Christmas - is wholly real and then proceed logically from there.' His family said in a statement through his publisher Penguin Random House that Briggs died on Tuesday morning. The book mentions several ways in which soldiers (who were "all real men, made of flesh and blood ... not made of Tin Pots or Iron") were killed or maimed; the pictures accompanying these parts of the text are monochrome pencil sketches, as opposed to the full-colour caricatures in the rest of the book. Following the victory by the soldiers of the Old Iron Woman, there are various celebrations, to which the maimed are not invited in case their appearance spoils the fun.

At the victory celebrations staged by the Old Iron Woman, “the soldiers with bits of their bodies missing were not invited to take part… in case the sight of them spoiled the rejoicing.” Author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, best-known for the 1978 children’s picture book The Snowman, has died aged 88.Drawings from fans – especially children’s drawings – inspired by his books were treasured by Raymond and pinned up on the wall of his studio. Reality there is however in the form of both sides casualities, drowned, burnt to death, shot and cripples portrayed realistically in contrast to the principal characters. Those with a long memory may remember Mrs T was first told of the invasion while attendind an environmental conference in Scotland. Her reaction was that alluded to in the book: "How exciting to have a REAL crisis to deal with....." ln the post victory celebration service, wounded and maimed British troops were kept away as their appear ance would have spoilt the mood of rejoicing. This brilliant piece may look like a children’s picture book, with typeset narration between single images, often across spreads, but it is hard-hitting and heartfelt. Briggs makes his point by contrasting the exaggerated puppet-show battle between the two leaders of Britain and Argentina - monstrous egos in strident colours, in manic caricatures resembling Gerald Scarfe or Ralph Steadman at their strongest, clad in fantastical iron-plated armour (original art above) - with the utterly heart-rending simplicity and sensitivity of his grey pencilled portrayals of soldiers in combat injured and dying, of their dead bodies returned in a big container, of the war-wounded on crutches and in wheelchairs being excluded from the patriotic pomp and spin. Francesca Dow, managing director of children’s at Penguin Random House said: “I am very proud that Puffin has been the home of Raymond’s children’s books for so many years. News of Raymond Briggs' death has been met with sadness not just by those who knew him, but by millions around the world - Ian Woods reports