Cartoon legend Raymond Briggs brought joy to millions but fans will be shocked by what he really thought of The Snowman
RAYMOND BRIGGS became as much part of Christmas as presents thanks to his much-loved creation The Snowman.
But the brilliant illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author, who died on Tuesday aged 88, was no fan of the festive season, remarking once: “I don’t like it at all and I make a point of grumping about it.”
Christmas celebrations were “so full of anxiety” for Briggs, who died on Tuesday aged 88.
He never considered himself a children’s author and his stories often had a touch of darkness.
His 1982 graphic novel When The Wind Blows focused on elderly couple Jim and Hilda Bloggs living in the English countryside dealing with the aftermath of a nuclear strike.
The story, which was inspired by a Panorama TV documentary exposing how little British civil defence was prepared for such an attack, was turned into a powerful animated film in 1986.
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As TV gardener Monty Don wrote in tribute last night, Briggs’ gave the world “a life’s work magnificently celebrating the rich seam of very English pessimism.”
But he had a playful side too, which he showed in his 1977 gross-out book Fungus The Bogeyman.
Describing how he came up with the character, Briggs said: “I was going to do an alphabet book — A is for apple. And then I thought, why does it have to be so perfect?
“Why can’t the apple have a maggot sticking out of the top? And that’s how I became immersed in bogeydom.”
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Piles of tat
It is The Snowman, though, that remains his best-loved work — thanks in part to the 1982 Oscar-nominated film it was turned into.
Published in 1978 as a picture book with no words, the book has sold more than 5.5million copies.
The story centres on a young boy waking up after a heavy snowfall and building a large snowman who magically comes to life.
It spawned stage shows, adverts, toys and even toilet roll — all of which the creator described as “piles of Snowman tat”.
Briggs never imagined the story would be so successful — but despite all the money the author earned from it, he wasn’t best pleased with just how big it became.
He said in 2019: “I was fed up with it years ago. I’m even more fed up with it now it’s been going on for nearly 40 bloody years.”
Before he had written The Snowman, Briggs had already created a book that was far more telling of how he really felt about the festive season.
Father Christmas, released in 1973, told the story of Santa as a crabby old man, complaining constantly.
‘SICK TO THE BACK TEETH’
He explained: “He’s been doing this dreadful job for donkeys’ years, going out all night long, in all weathers.
“He’s sick to the back teeth of it — who wouldn’t be?”
Just like his version of Santa, Briggs would bristle at Christmas — and avoided shops playing The Snowman’s soundtrack, Walking In The Air, sung by Aled Jones.
Briggs was born in 1934 in Wimbledon, South West London to Ethel and Ernest — who inspired his 1998 book of the same name.
His decision to leave grammar school at 15 to attend Wimbledon Art College confused his milkman father.
But he may never have had the success he had as an illustrator if he had listened to his parents.
When he revealed he wanted to draw cartoons, one teacher gasped: “Good God, is that all you want?”
He was met with more snobbery while studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.
But his talent was soon recognised when he left at 23 and got his first book, The Strange House, published in 1961.
He said: “I wrote a story and gave it to an editor hoping he would give me some advice.
“But instead he said he would publish it, which shows what the standard was like if a complete novice who had never written anything more than a school essay could get his first effort published.”
Briggs was no stranger to grief.
His parents died from cancer just nine months apart in 1971, and his schizophrenic wife Jean lost her life to leukaemia just two years later.
After meeting at art school, Jean and Briggs decided not to have children due to her mental illness.
He met his next partner, Liz, in a local pub.
Despite never remarrying, Briggs remained with Liz for 42 years until her death from Parkinson’s disease in 2015.
He was her primary carer throughout.
Briggs’s final book Time For Lights Out, published in November 2019, imagined his own house after his death.
He wrote: “There must have been, Some barmy old bloke here, Long-haired, artsy-fartsy type, Did pictures for kiddy books, Or some such tripe.”
His step-children and step-grandchildren have spoken of his love of a practical joke and “irreverent humour”.
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He even put a fake English Heritage blue plaque outside his Sussex home which read: “Raymond Briggs. Draw-er, colouring-in artist, wordsmith, speech bubble-ist, practical joker par excellence. Hangs out here.”
It is a fitting expression of the humour and temperament that millions of fans loved in his work.
Extracts from an interview with Raymond Briggs in 1998
By Peter Robertson
HOW would you like to be remembered?
I was in the middle of lunch when a friend’s son’s little girl, who was three, looked up and said, “Raymond is not a normal person”, which was about the best compliment I’ve had.
I wrote it down and stuck it on a wall of my house. And I’m going to have that written on my tombstone.
Does it bother you that you’ll always be best remembered for The Snowman and When The Wind Blows?
It doesn’t ’cos I shan’t be there.
Do you like Xmas?
No, I loathe it. I’d like to go away and get away from it all.
You’re worried about whether you’ve done the right thing and what to do with various relations.
I don’t have to worry now, as I haven’t got any left.
But there was always that problem of having to see people you didn’t particularly want to see.
Do you like receiving and giving gifts?
I’d rather not. I like presents if they’re silly, cost 50p and make you laugh – like fart gas.
But heavy presents costing £50 or more, I find a bit oppressive.
Presumably you give gifts?
You have to, don’t you?
Do you give copies of your books?
No, God forbid! Well, except possibly to distant relations.
Is there a dream Christmas you’d like to have?
Yes, I’d just like to get on a plane, get out of the country and away from it – forget it exists, quite honestly.
Yes, ’cos it’s all made far too heavy.
It begins weeks before.
You now get the holly and stuff in the super-markets before Guy Fawkes Night.
You get Christmassy things in Tesco in late October, which is ridiculous.
Do you ever watch The Snowman at Christmas time?
No, never.