Back to school after lockdown with some top cartoonists

At the time they’d begun self-isolating and were strictly staying six feet apart.

There was also a reference to Pooh and Piglet’s friend Christopher Robin, with a short quote from his extremely pertinent poem called Solitude - though it was written in 1927!

“I have a house where I go,

Where no one can be…

Where no one says anything, so

There is no one but me.”

Lockdown had just begun and London’s Chris Beetles Gallery was hosting a weekly series of innovative, online exhibitions to “cheer the nation”, said gallery director Dr Chris Beetles.

Amongst its huge stock of 18th, 19th and 20th century artworks the gallery boasts one of the world’s biggest selections of original illustrations and cartoons.

Along with artist E. H. Shepard’s six-feet-apart Pooh and Piglet and the stay-at-home Christopher Robin, the online exhibitions applied a varied array of cartoons related to the pandemic and its irritating accoutrements.

There was a ‘Guide to How to Self-Isolate’ with cautionary forewarnings on ‘How Not To!”

There were cartoons about public transport, walking in the country, home-alone pleasures, pastimes and preoccupations, and staying safe, happy and well.

The artworks radiated optimism and good humour, with a liberal garnish of sentiment and nostalgia, “to remind us” said Dr Beetles, “that even during times of greatest national challenge, Britain remains strong in spirit.”

And now, as our youngsters return to their classrooms, in differing ages and proportions around the UK, the Chris Beetles Gallery is presenting a new online exhibition of cartoons and illustrations collectively entitled ‘Back to School.

Running to March 15. 2021, one of the headline artworks, very appropriately, is St Trinian’s cartoonist Ronald Searle’s ‘Welcome back Molesworth!’ illustrating his other comically dysfunctional school.

Nigel Molesworth was the supposed author of a series of books, illustrated by Searle, about life in an English prep school called St Custard’s.

The first book, ‘Down with Skool!’ was published in October 1953.

‘Welcome back Molesworth!’ appeared on the front cover of The Young Elizabethan Magazine (for boys and girls, costing two shillings) in October 1956.

The cartoon shows a black-robed teacher, grimly shaking his cane at reticent-returnee Nigel.

The narrative accompanying the online exhibition states, “Children ... It’s freedom at last; no more pretending that your parents know anything at all about anything, least of all turning a computer on.

“It’s Monday morning, the school term commences, and the cartoonists are here to help ease you back in, and reassure you about the orange, stick-thingy that nice Mr Hancock wants to shove up your nose twice a week.

“Parents ... Hooray, holidays start now, and don’t pretend you were any good at that school stuff anyway, just get going again on that unfinished West Wing Box Set and the Midsomer Murder repeats.

“Quickly, now, they will be home again at four o’clock! No more pretending to work, no more staring at the screens while longing for friends and teachers and proper games. But it might all be a bit scary, this re-run of the First Day of School, so we need a bit of parental ingenuity to ease them back in!”

Cartoonist Bill Stott’s picture of a little boy, back in school with a broken arm bearing a badly spelt note from mother to teacher, beautifully illustrates the “bit of parental ingenuity”!

The exhibition’s narrative continues :“The teachers have missed the children…and have already forgotten all the drawbacks in their role as ‘loco parentis’, and it surely won’t take long to re-establish the dynamics of the relationship.”

(‘In loco parentis’ is Latin for ‘in the place of a parent’.)

Amongst the many other uproarious artworks is cartoonist Edward McLachlan’s graffiti on the school wall of St Cuthbert’s Comprehensive - ‘Owr Inglish Teecher is rubish!!’

Cartoonist Nick Newman is represented by a number of his drawings, mostly about Covid testing.

One depicts a little boy who can’t go back to school, as the wee lad’s mum explains, because “he has a swab stuck up his nose”.

The exhibition narrative optimistically philosophises “social scientists tell us that back under the watchful eye of the teacher and the stimulating input from their peers, the children can expand their life skills and social integration and get out of those bad habits they slipped into at home; and of course how right they are!

“We are told that children need a bit of discipline in their lives and that they crave clear guidelines and strict parameters of behaviour.

“Parents are such softies that their kids are all dying to get back to school so that can follow the rules and get stuck into a bit of serious social distancing.

“But the pleasures of the day can’t last forever and from the blissful, busy comradeship of schooldays children must be returned to their homes.”

A homecoming that’s wonderfully illustrated by cartoonist Kathryn Lamb, whose little boy, home from his first day back at school, tells his father “Homework? Sorry, I’m not working from home anymore.”

For more information about the ‘Back to School’ exhibition, and the gallery’s other online shows, plus their Instagram, Facebook and Twitter feeds, visit www.chrisbeetles.com