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.
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.
ReplyDeleteWonderful 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!
ReplyDeleteI hope this exhibition revives interest in Searle's greater work (pace Molesworth enthusiasts), through Punch to his Japanese PoW days.
ReplyDeleteBTW, his first wife was the Puffin editor, Kaye Webb.