Norman Thelwell

Norman Thelwell (3 May 1923 - 7 February 2004) was an English cartoonist well-known for his humorous illustrations of ponies and horses. Born in Birkenhead, as a promising young student from Liverpool College of Art, he soon became a contributor to the satirical magazine Punch in the 1950s, and earned many lasting devotees by illustrating Chicko in the British boys' comic Eagle.

Known to many only as Thelwell, he found his true comic niche with Pony Club girls and ponies refusing fences, a subject for which he became best-known. His cartoons and drawings delighted millions.

For the last quarter of a century of his life he lived in the Test valley at Timsbury, near Romsey, gradually restoring a farm house and landscaping the grounds which gave rise to his first factual book, A Plank Bridge by a Pool, which detailed the first two lakes he dug there. A third lake was later featured on the BBC’s South Today programme. Written much earlier, but published three years later, A Millstone Round My Neck described his experiences in re-building a Cornish water mill (Addicroft Mill at Liskeard, which he called Penruin), that was sold before the book was published. He always loved old buildings, and in his auto-biography, Wrestling with a Pencil wrote about his joy in the beauty of old cottages.

Published books

Angels on Horseback (1957)
Thelwell Country (1959)
A Leg at Each Corner (1962)
Top Dog (1964)
Thelwell's Riding Academy (1965)
Drawing Ponies (1966)
Up the Garden Path (1967)
Thelwell's Compleat Tangler (1967)
Thelwell's Book of Leisure (1968)
This Desirable Plot (1970)
The Effluent Society (1971)
Penelope (1972)
Three Sheets in the Wind (1973)
Belt Up (1974)
A Plank Bridge by a Pool (1978)
A Millstone Round My Neck (1981)
Pony Calvalcade (1981)
Some Damn Fool's Signed the Rubens Again (1982)
Penelope Rides Again (1988)
The Cat's Pyjamas (1992)
Magnificat (1983)
Wrestling with a Pencil: The Life of a Freelance Artist (1986)
Play It As It Lies (1987)

External links

• Thelwell website
• Obituary in the Telegraph

Persondata
Name	Thelwell, Norman
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	3 May 1923
Place of birth
Date of death	7 February 2004
Place of death