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Cartoonist 'Larry' dies
Jun 28 2003
By Jane Tyler, Evening Mail
Tributes have been paid to top Birmingham cartoonist Larry who has died aged 76.
Larry - real name Terence Parkes - was one of Britain's most highly rated cartoonists and was known among his peers as the "beer-swilling Brummie".
During his career he worked for many prestige publications, including the Evening Mail and satirical magazines Punch and Private Eye.
The son of a car factory welder, he was born in Birmingham on November 19, 1927.
In his book, Larry on Larry, he wrote: "I don't remember who Aston Villa were playing at home that day but there must have been a good crowd as a huge cheer was heard at the adjoining maternity hospital at four o'clock, coinciding with my arrival in this world (my mother swore blind it had nothing to do with Villa scoring)."
Larry's artistic talents developed while he was a pupil at Handsworth Grammar School and he went on to Birmingham School of Art.
He spent his National Service in the Army (1946-8) and later taught art at Lincoln Road Secondary Modern School in Peterborough.
His pseudonym derives from Larry Parks, star of the film The Al Jolson Story, which was shown in Peterborough when he was teaching there in 1954, and the pupils' nickname for their art master stuck.
Demands for his work continued to flood in and, five years after marrying his college sweetheart Pauline, he went freelance in 1957.
Evening Mail cartoonist Colin Whittock said Larry was the "cartoonist's cartoonist".
"He was a big man, built like a farm labourer, but had such a delicate touch with his draw-ing," he said.
"I first met him when we shared an office in Corporation Street and he was such an influence on me."
