Scottish cartoonist Jimmy Friell, 1912-1997

From London daily The Morning Star:

An angel with a poison pen

(Monday 02 April 2007)

IN FOCUS: Cartoonist Jimmy Friell

MICHAL BONZCA introduces Jimmy Friell, the talented cartoonist who defined an era of the Daily Worker under the name Gabriel.

Looking from a worm’s perspective, a tank looms large and threatening like an authoritarian edifice. Its menacing gun barrel is aimed at a distant target.

In the foreground, Harold Macmillan, 1951 minister of housing and later defence, addresses a homeless family spinning the yarn that their concerns are being adequately addressed by this design.

Indeed, on closer inspection of the cartoon, the gun turret resembles a shoddy terraced house.

If you replaced the tank with a Trident submarine, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was 2007.

In fact, it was Britain after World War II and the sharp, uncompromising drawing was penned by James Friell.

Last month marked the 95th anniversary of the birth of James “Jimmy” Friell, who was, once upon a time, memorably heralded as “Fleet Street’s greatest discovery since David Low.”

But who was he? Jimmy Friell was born in Glasgow on March 13 1912, the fifth of seven children, in the working-class tenements of Maryhill.

Clydeside: Red, Orange And Green: Scottish labour movement politics: here.

When The Clyde Ran Red: here.