This is adapted from a talk I gave recently to a local group about The Bairn, the character who features in the topical cartoon in our local newspaper for forty somethimg years - 

To begin with, I think it’s important to establish that I didn’t create The Bairn character. 

I joined the Falkirk Herald in 1972, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh out of college, as an advertising and editorial artist. My immediate boss at that time was a gentleman some of you may know of called Derek Sanderson and together we were responsible for creating adverts for long ago Falkirk businesses like Johnston Stewart garage, Brookes menswear, Sovereign Homemaker, Ewings of Falkirk, the Maniqui and Philip of Falkirk. We also created column headings and other material for Editorial. After I’d been there for a few months we were called down to editorial by then editor Ken Waddell and told that since they now had a spare artist they wanted to start a regular topical cartoon to be called “The Bairn”. 

 Derek and I decided that we would both submit character sketches and whoever’s was picked would draw the cartoon. 

I was just out of college while Derek was much more experienced, having previously worked in greeting cards for several years. Not unnaturally one of his characters was chosen and he drew the cartoon for the first three and a half years. This is my recreation of what Derek’s version of the Bairn looked like. 

I was given the consolation prize of a cartoon spot in the centre pages. There was a spell where the Herald had threee cartoons each week, - Derek on The Bairn on the front page, my other topical cartoon in the centre pages and a sports cartoon on the back page by well known local artist and character Hamish Bruce. Glory Days….

We all worked well together and often  helped each other out with ideas and punchlines. .We had to submit ideas to editorial for approval before drawing up the finished artwork, usually half an hour or so before the paper went to press.. This didn’t go down too well the the advertising manager who wasn’t pleased that we were drawing cartoons instead of creating adverts or the production manager who was chomping at the bit to get the paper out…

Eventually Derek left to set up his own business as a very good fine artist and I became (hahahah) senior artist and I was asked if I would take over drawing the Bairn. And I’ve been doing it ever since.

Each cartoon was (and still is)  based on a topical story from that weeks paper. At that point, The Bairn was what is known as a “portmanteau” character. If the story was about the police, he’d be a policeman, if it was about a cook, he’d be a cook… etc. If you remember an old cartoon with ran in the Daily Record many years ago called “Useless Eustace” , he was that type of character. More often he’d be an observer, standing to the side and commenting on what was going on in the cartoon. Or even just standing in the background with a  (?) look on his face.For the first few years I had to keep to that format and do my best to  mimic Dereks drawing style.  Every  cartoon had to be drawn publication size which in the early days was single “pocket cartoon” size - roughly 10 centimeters by 5centimeteres  which could be very restricting. At one point they increased the number of coluns on a page from 10 to 11, by narrowing the column widths,  giving me even less space to work in… Sometimes editorial didn’t appreciate this… We’d get asked to draw something about, say, a football match  showing all the players and both goal ends, and we’d just go (hold fingers close together)

Remember this was the early 80’s, well before computers . In theory we could have draw it bigger and had it reduced photographically but this would have meant bothering the process department which wasn’t a good idea when they were trying to put out a newspaper and the production manager was screaming for the pages to put on the press. , Eventually I was allowed to play round with things a little, The Bairn was switched to the centre pages and they gave me two whole columns  to work with - LUXURY! - still had to be drawn same size though…

In due course I left the Herald to set up my own graphic design business My assistant at that time who took my place, wasn’t interested in cartooning so I asked If I could take The Bairn with me tp draw on a freelance basis and they agreed.  The way we worked was I’d phone the Herald on a Tuesday, they’d give me the choice of two or three stories, I’d call back to suggest a few ideas, draw up the one they picked and then deliver it to their offices - more or less the way we still do it today. At that time I had an office in Manor Street, two minutes walk from the Herald offices in the High Street and I’d deliver the finished artwork by hand. I was still able to deliver it when they moved to Newmarket Street, though I was less happy when they moved down to Middlefield. 

And then one day I got a call saying they were dropping the cartoon.

It had been about twenty years and I was philosophical about it and moved on to other things. I was much more involved with graphic design then and concentrated on designing brochures, corporate identities, fun stuff like that. I still did cartoons for books and magazines and children’s comics (Remember Children’s comics?). This is one of the books I did cartoons for and I managed to sneak the Bairn into one of the cartoons. 

About six months on the Herald called me and said that people had been asking what had happened to the cartoon and would I like to bring it back…? Returned by popular demand!. By this time I was working from home and remember getting a phone call from a very irate gentleman who had been badgering the Herald to bring the Bairn back and was very miffed that he wasn’t getting the credit for it. And so the Bairn started appearing again. But they wanted to make it slightly different somehow and, on the spur of the moment, I suggested changing from “The Bairn” to “The Bairns” and intruding his hitherto unknown family - wife, daughter, wee son and family dog. It took me a wee bit to realise we were doing Falkirks answer to The Simpsons…

As an aside, I was asked to try and modernise that character somehow so I tried shaving off his moustache, giving hime a baseball cap to wear instead of a bunnet… it didn’t work, it just wasn’t The Bairn without the moustache and bunnet. The look had been established and we picked up where we’d left him, As an aside to the aside, The only time the Bairn has appeared without his bonnet was when I drew a tribute cartoon on the death of the Queen, He had to be holding it as a mark of respect. And yes, like me, he’s going bald at the back. 

As an aside to the aside to the aside, I liked the design of the dog so much I’ve adopted him as my mascot.

And that brings us up to date. Modern technology has made things a lot easier. These days I get my stories via email. Having drawn the character for so long, The Herald are happy to trust me to come up with an idea and I’ve only once had an idea outright rejected, 

Unlike the old days, when everything was drawn print size on paper with pen and ink, these daysI draw the cartoon on computer about three times publication size. This is what a full size Bairn cartoon looks like. I’ve been able to introduce the occasional burst of (gasp) colour  - usually for the Christmas and New Year issues - and then I email the finished cartoon back to them for publication.

And then it goes to wrap fish and chips…

It was only recently that we realised The Bairn has been around for about fifty years. I hope he’s (and I) are going to be around for a wee bit longer yet.

For examples of my Bairns cartoons, please see their page