Resuming My Giles Annuals Collecting Returns Me My Youth And How I Learned British History Since World War II

I have taken up again my attempt to collect all the Giles’ annuals. This is something I started years ago and which halted when we emigrated to Australia and since we came home in 2003, I didn’t . I had only really got started and so far have twelve of fifty volumes, the earliest of which goes back to 1953/54 and was the 10th series. The first series came out in 1946/47 and will no doubt be very expensive if I can discover one.

I got my love of Giles from my dad who had lots of annuals at home throughout my youth and I used to love re-reading them, usually once a year. The humour and detail of the drawing cast a important light on my knowledge of 20th Century British history after the war years. The Giles family lived through every twist and turn of the development to society, a solid point around which the world turned.

Giles did his Work From Home, he would go through the newspapers and choose his theme for the day and start to draw. When he had finished he would take it to the station where he lived in Ipswich and put the cartoon on the train where someone from the Daily Express would collect it and take it to the printing works to be included in the next day’s paper.

These days, Giles life would most likely be very different. For a start he could employ Internet Business to deliver his work through a scanner and email. It would almost be viewed to be doing a type of Online Jobs but there would be more. As a present day cartoonist he would have a website to give fans more information, show chosen cartoons that maybe hadn’t been published, sell themed goods and in all probability make him a very rich man.

That is not to say that he didn’t become affluent. The Express paid him very well to deliver three cartoons per week to them,