Andy Capp, that
fag-bearing, beer-swilling – and hen-pecked – stereotypical northern bloke, was
born in Hartlepool – or rather his creator was, namely one Reginald Smyth, in July
1917, at 52 Union Road .
Reg was a very
ordinary sort, born to working class, often bickering, parents, who had been
forced together by a shot-gun wedding.
His father liked his drink, and his mother never tired of reminding him
of it – sound familiar? Well, although
Andy Capp’s long-suffering wife, Flo, was
based on Reg’s mum, Andy himself was an amalgam of much that was evident by way
of male role models in the days of his creator’s youth – and not specifically
his own father.
The family
wandered between Hartlepool and Sunderland as the marriage ebbed and flowed, young Reg leaving school at 14 to
become a butcher’s boy. He later saw
action during WWII in Africa and the Middle East – a time during which he honed his cartooning skills with his
‘pals’. After the war, he joined the GPO
and married.
Encouraged by
his friends and family, he embarked on a little cartooning work for the Northern Daily Mail, then got his break
with The Daily Mirror in 1954 when he
was taken on full-time – and added an ‘e’ to his surname so that he may seem
ever-so-slightly posher to southern readers. His famous
layabout creation finally appeared on 5th August 1957 when Reg was prompted by his boss to devise a new character – and
Andy Capp, the man who was a ‘handicap’ to his wife, was born.
Andy – and Reg –
went onto international stardom, of course; but the artist soon tired of life
in London and moved back to Hartlepool for the final two decades of his life, dying in 1998 aged 80.
[the above is
based on an interview given by Smyth’s cousin, Ian Smyth Herdman, to the Sunderland Echo on 10th August 2007 – see here]
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