The Life of Giles
A brief résumé

 

29 September 1916	Ronald Giles born at Angel, Islington, London above his fathers tobaconist shop
1926	Family move to Edgeware, London; by now known as "Karlo"
1930	Carl Giles leaves Barnesbury Park School and starts as a messenger boy at a Wardour Street film company
1933	Starts work for Alexander Korda at Elstree working on The Fox Hunt
1934	Korda moves offices to Isleworth. Giles has accident outside the studio gates on his Panther 600 motorcycle. Suffers fractured skull, permanent loss of hearing in one ear and damage to drawing hand - incapacitated for nearly a year
1936	Works variously as stable hand, pavement artist and travelling accordionist
1937	Working in Ipswich on Steve the Horse cartoons when his brother Bill dies. He returns to London to live with his family. Starts working for Reynolds News - initially on a retainer fee
14 March 1942	Marries his first cousin, Joan Clarke, who he has known since childhood
1942	Moves to Badgers Cottage, Whitnesham, nr. Ipswich
October 1943	Moves from Reynolds News to Express Newspapers. First cartoons appear in Sunday Express for 3 October and Daily Express on 17 November Also producing animated cartoons for Ministry of Information
19 September 1944	Becomes War Cartoonist with rank of Captain. Flies into Belgium
1945	Follows the front across Belgium, Holland and Germany. Visits Belson concentration camp within days of it being taken over by British troops - an experience he subsequently says he thought about 'every day of his life'
April 1945	Witnesses the German surrender to Field Marshall Montgomery on Luneburgh Heath
5 August 1945	First 'Giles Family' cartoon appears in Daily Express
1946	Moves to Hillbrow Farm, Whitnesham, nr. Ipswich. A 250 acre pig farm
1959	Receives OBE
1962	Receives Special Award for 'Distinguished Services to Cartooning' from the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain
1982	Receives the Granada Television 'What The Papers Say' Gerald Barry Award for 'services to newspapers'
???	elected President of the British Cartoonists' Association
1984	Made a Life Governor of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. Over ten million Giles Christmas cards sold in aid of the RNLI by 1990
October 1989	Leaves Daily Express as he feels the Editor does not appreciate his work
1990	Awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Royal College of Art [the first to a cartoonist]
1990/01	Has both legs amputated below the knee as a result of circulation failure
23 June 1991	Last Sunday Express cartoon appears
25 December 1994	Joan Giles dies
27 August 1995	Carl Giles dies

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Last updated: 3 July, 2001