The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman

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Briggs has recently returned to illustrating, with Alan Ahlberg’s interactive children’s books The Adventures of Bert and A Bit More Bert (2001-2), but his own latest, The Puddleman (2004) is another idiosyncratic work, about a child’s appreciation of a character who puts puddles in the ground. He has now achieved a subtle and expressive form, equally able to move and entertain us. He has, says Nicolette Jones, ‘elevated the standing of the art of strip illustration and added status to children’s books’. News of Raymond Briggs' death has been met with sadness not just by those who knew him, but by millions around the world - Ian Woods reports Thanks to observation, his eye for telling detail and his ear for dialogue, Briggs’s characters are always convincing. He was like a good film director, knowing exactly when to place the closeup or the long shot. He knew the right moment for silence, when to exclude speech balloons from a frame. He won numerous prizes across his career, including the Kurt Maschler Award, the Children’s Book of the Year and the Dutch Silver Pen Award. Many typical traits of Briggs’ later work were present, above all a genuinely felt sympathy for working people (Briggs’ father appears once in the story as his milk round and Father Christmas’ delivery route cross paths in the early morning). He has a feel for working class life, with its difficulties and sometimes comic predicaments. Briggs drew the ire of conservatives for breaking social taboos, such as depicting Father Christmas on the lavatory and constantly grumbling about “Bloomin Christmas!”

Reality there is however in the form of both sides casualities, drowned, burnt to death, shot and cripples portrayed realistically in contrast to the principal characters. Those with a long memory may remember Mrs T was first told of the invasion while attendind an environmental conference in Scotland. Her reaction was that alluded to in the book: "How exciting to have a REAL crisis to deal with....." ln the post victory celebration service, wounded and maimed British troops were kept away as their appear ance would have spoilt the mood of rejoicing. The book mentions several ways in which soldiers (who were "all real men, made of flesh and blood ... not made of Tin Pots or Iron") were killed or maimed; the pictures accompanying these parts of the text are monochrome pencil sketches, as opposed to the full-colour caricatures in the rest of the book. Following the victory by the soldiers of the Old Iron Woman, there are various celebrations, to which the maimed are not invited in case their appearance spoils the fun. Find sources: "The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( May 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) At the victory celebrations staged by the Old Iron Woman, “the soldiers with bits of their bodies missing were not invited to take part… in case the sight of them spoiled the rejoicing.”This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. In February 2017, Briggs was honoured with the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award and the trust responded to news of his death by tweeting: “He will live on in his stunning, iconic books.”

Briggs depicts a war over “a sad little island” between Argentina’s General Leopoldo Galtieri and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, which is won by the Old Iron Woman at terrible human cost—“all real men, made of flesh and blood.” The growing danger of nuclear war, as well as similar useless and therefore deadly advice give during the COVID-19 pandemic, is proof of the continued relevance of Briggs’ moving story.

Because of the way Briggs draws Thatcher as kind of like Parker and Stone depict Barbara Streisand in South Park (Mecha Streisand!), robotic with cannons for breasts that open up and spew forth tax money, I wouldn’t say this is at all a book suitable for kids. And if not for that, then the muted, devastating way he shows the casualties of war ought to be carefully presented to youngsters as the drawings are quite blunt. It would be interesting to discover other, lesser known interpretations of Mrs. T in British comics. Were there anarchist fanzine strips about her? Anti-Poll Tax comics? Miners’ Strike comics? She made several cameos in North American comics too, most notably Canada’s Dave Sim who introduced her as the fervent ‘Cirinist’ believer and enemy of art and freedom in a piece of perfect casting for the denouement of ‘Jaka’s Story’ in Cerebus.

Most of my ideas seem to be based on a simple premise: let's assume that something imaginary - a snowman, a Bogeyman, a Father Christmas - is wholly real and then proceed logically from there.' After becoming a professional illustrator, he worked and taught illustration at Brighton College of Art. The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (ISBN 0241113628) is a 1984 picture book, ostensibly for very young children, written and illustrated by Raymond Briggs and published by Hamish Hamilton. It satirises the Falklands War of 1982. Drawings from fans – especially children’s drawings – inspired by his books were treasured by Raymond and pinned up on the wall of his studio.

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His family said in a statement through his publisher Penguin Random House that Briggs died on Tuesday morning. At the age of 6, during World War II, Briggs was twice evacuated as one of the millions of children, who along with expectant mothers and the infirm, were sent away from heavily populated areas of England to escape the Nazi air raids. Briggs said he enjoyed what he later described as a happy but uneventful childhood. Despite outward appearances, however, anxieties over the ever-present threat of death and destruction cannot have failed to leave a mark on the impressionable boy (already 10 years’ old when the war ended) and undoubtedly accounts for these themes looming so large in his later work.

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner added: “Raymond Briggs brought so much magic and joy to so many.

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The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman ( ISBN 0241113628) is a 1984 picture book, ostensibly for very young children, written and illustrated by Raymond Briggs and published by Hamish Hamilton. It satirises the Falklands War of 1982. First edition