A North-East exhibition will celebrate the career of a cartoonist who chronicled one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the Catholic Church…and created a treasured children’s character. PETER BARRON reports

BLISTERING Barnacles! Scuttling cuttlefish! Kipper me capstans! Captain Horatio Pugwash and his motley crew are invading the North-East, more than 60 years after they first enchanted young TV audiences.

Ushaw, on the outskirts of Durham, is to stage the premiere of a double exhibition presenting the work of legendary cartoonist and animator John Ryan.

As well as “Sink Or Swim” – an exhibition featuring cartoons from John’s 43 years as the Catholic Herald’s cartoonist – Captain Horatio Pugwash will also be sailing into Ushaw on his ship, The Black Pig, with a display called “Ahoy Me Hearties”.

It will be opened on Thursday, September 27, by John’s daughter Isabel who, as a child, was the voice of another of her father’s creations, Mary, in the much-loved children’s TV series Mary, Mungo and Midge.

The exhibition was the brainwave of eminent historian Dr Alana Harris, in collaboration with Isabel, who has unearthed a treasure trove of her father’s cartoons from scrapbooks and boxes in the attic.

It was due to be staged at King’s College in London, where Dr Harris is a lecturer. However, due to renovation work taking place, a new venue was needed, and Ushaw was chosen as the “perfect” location. Up to seven years ago, Ushaw College was used as a Catholic seminary for the training of priests, but it has now been reborn as a tourist attraction, business hub and venue for events and exhibitions.

John, the son of a diplomat, was born in Edinburgh but educated at Ampleforth Catholic College in North Yorkshire, where he co-founded a scurrilous school magazine and contributed witty drawings.

During the Second World War, he served in Burma and, away from the front-line, his wicked caricatures of Army officers got him into hot water.

After the war, he turned down a secure job as art master at Harrow School and launched a career as a freelance commercial artist. He later explained that Captain Pugwash, and other characters, were created out of financial necessity.

John’s lifelong fascination with pirates and the sea had begun as a child when his family moved to the exotic port of Rabat in Morocco.

His strip cartoons appeared in Eagle, Girl, and Swift magazines as well as the Radio Times, and from the late 1950s to the 1970s, the Captain Pugwash stories were transferred to BBC TV, with the first black and white episode broadcast in 1957. Paid a mere £3 per episode, he perfected an ingenious method of using flat, painted, cardboard characters, animated by his wife Priscilla, using hidden levers.

The nation took the greedy, cowardly pirate, and his arch enemy Cut-Throat Jake, to their hearts and more lucrative animations followed, including The Adventures of Sir Prancealot, The Hunting of the Snark, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Mary, Mungo and Midge.

John was close to his elder brother, Father Columba Ryan, an outstanding philosopher, who introduced him in 1964 to the Catholic Herald’s managing director Otto Herschan. The meeting led to John being invited to become the newspaper’s cartoonist. Little did they realise that John’s poignant weekly cartoon on the state of the Christian world would endure for 43 years.

John died in 2009 but, in an interview late in his life, he said: “I’m a lucky man. I’ve managed to earn a living by doing what I love.”

John’s daughter Isabel said: “We are thrilled that my father’s work is going to go on show and Ushaw, with its Catholic history and beautiful exhibition space, is the perfect location. Not only does the work form a unique social history but it will also be a lot of fun.”

Isabel recalled the joy of working with her father when, as a 10-year-old, she became the voice of Mary in Mary Mungo and Midge, which was first broadcast in 1969.

“In those days, the BBC used adult actors to be the voices of children and several were tried but my father got me to do a reading and stuck the recording on the end of the audition tape without saying who it was. They liked what they heard, and I got the part!” she explained.

After running at Ushaw until December 22, the exhibition will move to King’s College in London early next year.

In the meantime, one of history’s best-loved pirates will get new wind in his sails in the North-East of Blighty.