EXTRACTS: illustrators issue 2 © 2012 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition))

43 T here are two main areas of work for which C. L. Doughty will be best remembered: his book length strip versions of ‘Dick Turpin’ for the Thriller Comics Library and his magnificent colour illustrations and fine strip adaptations of classic stories for the fabled children’s educational weekly, Look and Learn . His illustrative work spanned almost four decades and many different genres but it is for his exceptional ability to capture historical periods with great authenticity, coupled with imaginative flair, that singles him out as one of the great British illustrators. Cecil Langley Doughty was born in Withernsea in the East Riding of Yorkshire on 7 November 1913, the youngest of eight siblings, four brothers and three sisters. Although his father was a keen amateur painter, Cecil was the only one of the family who decided on an artistic career. His art training “such as it was”, Doughty once added, was at Battersea (later Chelsea) Polytechnic. It ended in 1931 and he found work illustrating such periodicals as the Graphic , Woman’s Companion and Radio Times . His burgeoning career was curtailed in 1939 as a result of what he called “some war or other” and he spent six years in the army as “a grossly inadequate Lance Corporal”. Before he joined up, however, he met someone who was to be the most important person in his life. His son, Chris, tells the story that, during a train journey just before the war, his father happened to share a carriage with a young woman and, “ever the gentleman”, he asked her whether she would like him to open the window. It was not long after, in 1939, that Cecil Doughty and the girl in the carriage, a young children’s nurse named Carmen Newell, were married. “Always a sensitive man”, according to his son, his wife “always protected him from any upsets”. Throughout their marriage their relationship remained extremely close and one can’t help thinking that Carmen’s nursing training was to prove invaluable in her role of Cecil’s protector. In September of 1941, their first and only child, Chris, was born. All through the War, mother and son lived with her parents in Cornwall but, on Cecil’s return from the Army, they moved to a small flat in Berwick Street, BLADES AND BROCADES The Art Of Cecil Langley Doughty By David Ashford ABOVE: The young Cecil Doughty with an early example of his advertising art betraying a distinct influence of Mabel Lucie Atwell. FACING PAGE: A moment of tension as uninvited guests arrive. Doughty’s masterly rendition of 18th Century rogues surprised in a wayside tavern, for the children’s weekly, Look and Learn.