The Channel 4 News site has a video interview with the creator of St Trinians and St Custards. Because Ronald Searle will be 90 tomorrow:An exhibition devoted to Searle's work opens at The Cartoon Museum in London tomorrow and runs until 4 July.Ronald Searle was standing in his sitting room - rose champagne bottle (his engine oil, he calls it) at the ready in his one good hand - his writing/drawing left hand.
Monica Searle, in her 80s, greeted us warmly at the top of the stairs, freshly coiffured in tinted glasses. They've been a couple for over half a century (a second marriage for both of them) - "bliss," she tells me.
There's a poignant mutual dependence. She describes herself as "Slave Number 17".
"Why 17?" I asked. "My favourite number," she replied. We go on to spend five delightful hours with the Searles.
Monica Searle doesn't drink. The rest of us - reporter, cameraman, producer and Ronald Searle - valiantly stick to the task, three bottles of champagne (Billecart-Salmon at 50 euros a pop - we checked at duty free on the way home). There've been tougher assignments.
3 comments:
Maaaaarvellous! A longevity lesson for us all - if only we could afford it! And what a great creation St Trinians was - and his cartoons were fantastic at the start of the films as well. Searle can't have been that old when the St T films were made. After all, George Cole is 85 this year, and he was a mere slip of a lad in the films.
Wonderful to know that Ronald Searle is still with us. Clearly rosé champagne works even better than Matron's GIN and radio malt. Floreat St Custard's!
I hope this exhibition revives interest in Searle's greater work (pace Molesworth enthusiasts), through Punch to his Japanese PoW days.
BTW, his first wife was the Puffin editor, Kaye Webb.
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