Bill Tidy

Bill Tidy's family has paid tribute to "the most brilliant cartoonist and the very best dad".

He went on to publish cartoon strips in a host of UK national newspapers, including The Fosdyke Saga for the Daily Mirror and The Cloggies for Private Eye. His family paid tribute to "the most brilliant cartoonist and the very best dad" after he died with his children, Sylvia and Rob, by his side. Bill Tidy, the cartoonist who was known for his quick artistry on shows including Countdown and Countryfile, has died at the age of 89.

'We are all deeply saddened but his legacy and cartoons will continue to live on'

Over the course of his career, he wrote 20 books, and illustrated 70. He died with his two children, Sylvia and Rob, at his side. He was also well-known for his immense charitable work, and when in Southport, he was always happy to support local causes through his artwork, As his work became more well-known and began finding spots in the likes of the Daily Sketch and The Daily Mirror, he moved to London, where he formed the British Cartoonists’ Association with the help of some colleagues on Fleet Street. [Southport](https://www.lancs.live/all-about/southport) and he will be fondly remembered for his widely published comic strips. [environment](https://www.lancs.live/all-about/environment).

Bill Tidy, the cartoonist, who has died aged 89, was best known for his Cloggies and Fosdyke Saga strips, and for making an unsuccessful attempt to save Punch ...

Tidy regarded his skill as a cartoonist as an intuitive gift, and claimed he could “draw in any circumstances with any tool and extract a gag out of whatever subject, quickly and with no difficulty”. Tidy was appointed MBE in 2000 and in 2007/2008 was president of the Lord’s Taverners, a charity he supported for more than 30 years. “The Tidys took pity and let me stay the night,” she recalled, “and Bill drew a picture of me in a trilby as ‘Bill Spurve, ace reporter’.” Tidy subsequently titled his autobiography Is There Any News Of The Iceberg? On radio he was a panellist on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on Radio 4, and on television in 1975 an unsuspecting subject of This Is Your Life. The Cloggies ran in Private Eye from 1967 to 1981 and in The Listener from 1985 to 1986. In 1983 the strip resurfaced as a series on Radio 2, which Tidy co-wrote with John Junkin. In the late 1960s a 19 year old Libby Purves interviewed Tidy for a student newspaper, after admiring his joke about a polar bear turning up at the White Star shipping office following the Titanic sinking, anxious to know what had happened to the iceberg. In 1989 Tidy was dismayed at the arrival of a young new editor, David Thomas, the third in as many years. Tidy was drawing an entire week’s supply of The Fosdyke Saga each Friday, telling one interviewer that this end to the week was “symbolic — because the Fosdykes were my great standby, the rock on which my church is built”. His strip cartoons made his name, but his biggest break came in the mid-Sixties when Private Eye accepted The Cloggies strip, which he always hoped Yorkshire TV would turn into a series. His mother was a barmaid, and his father a merchant seaman who left when Bill was a child. Tidy used it as a satire of northern and urban British male culture, particularly the ruthless world of Lancashire clog-dancing, which he elevated to a blood sport; the Cloggies folk dancing team regularly maimed the opposition, often employing Neville’s Triple Flying Arkwright by way of a coup de grace.

Famed British comic strip cartoonist Bill Tidy has passed away. William Edward (Bill) Tidy, MBE. October 9, 1933 – March 11, 2023.

I started landing spots in national newspapers and being a story teller began to produce 2, 3 and 4 picture gags. Few cartoonists are deserving of the descriptive ‘genius’ but Bill Tidy was one of them. In 1957, he became a professional cartoonist and began contributing to Punch. Years later, on March 2, 1971, the front-page of the Daily Mirror proclaimed THE FOSDYKES ARE HERE! [From Yesterday’s Paper a 2015 appreciation of Tidy by John Adcock:](http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/2015/03/englands-greatest-comic-strip-artist.html) The strip was a parody of The Forsyte Saga, the novel by John Galsworthy, set in the industrial north instead of a genteel upper-class environment.

Bill Tidy, obituary: Fleet Street cartoonist who drew gritty northern satires such as the Cloggies for Private Eye and the Fosdyke Saga for the Daily ...

Tidy was known for his appearances on Countdown and the Watercolour Challenge and he received an MBE in 2000 for his services to journalism.

The cartoonist did not receive any formal artistic training and instead worked for the Royal Engineers in the Army before his career began as a cartoonist when he sold a sketch to a Japanese newspaper in 1955, according to the BBC. His cartoons included The Cloggies, which appeared in the Private Eye from 1967 to 1981, and The Fosdyke Saga, which ran in the Daily Mirror from 1971 to 1985 and was later made into a BBC radio drama, the broadcaster reported. Tidy was known for his appearances on Countdown and the Watercolour Challenge and he received an MBE in 2000 for his services to journalism.