Cartoon dog Fred Basset turns 60

2023-07-07

Yappy 60th, Fred! When cartoonist Alex Graham started drawing Fred Basset in 1963, readers complained he looked nothing like a dog… So the Mail gave Alex his very own hound – and a legend was born that’s still going strong today

Fred first appeared in the Mail back when Harold Macmillan was PM in 1963
In over 21,000 cartoon strips, readers charmed by cartoonist’s gentle humour

There’s a big birthday ambling our way this week — and it belongs to someone with long floppy ears, short waddly legs and a tail wagging in anticipation. Not that Fred Basset, 60 on Sunday (or 420 in doggy years), will be making a big fuss.

He’s just not the sort.

So there might be a gentle celebratory dig in the rose bed. Or a nose in the bins. Or perhaps a quick reorganisation of the daily newspaper and a munch on a stolen string of sausages.

And then, more likely, a snooze in his master’s chair as he waits for all the festivities to pass.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to marvel that this simple comic strip, which began on July 9, 1963, about a couple —whose names we never know — and their quiet, cosy life dominated by a dog who ‘thinks like a human’, has endured and delighted us all for so long.

There’s a big birthday ambling our way this week — and it belongs to someone with long floppy ears, short waddly legs and a tail wagging in anticipation. Not that Fred Basset (pictured), 60 on Sunday (or 420 in doggy years), will be making a big fuss

Every day (apart from Christmas Day) for 60 years in more than 21,000 cartoon strips, millions of readers of over 200 newspapers around the world have been charmed by the late cartoonist Alex Graham’s gentle humour (pictured: Alex Graham with his pet Basset hound and muse, Freda)

His was a warm, wry joyfulness that heralds from a leafy suburb in Middle England where there are bobbies on the beat, Green Shield stamps, a golf club that provides sanctuary from the tyranny of the vacuum cleaner, and dinner on the table when Father gets home to find a dog who somehow always knows best.

Any cartoon strip lasting so long is an astonishing achievement.

But particularly this one because when Fred first appeared in the Mail, back when Harold Macmillan was prime minister and the Profumo affair was raging, readers were rather perplexed at what precisely Fred was. Because he didn’t look like a Basset hound at all.

Long and thin, with the ears all straight and wrong and not even any distinctive ‘furniture’ — the name for the fantastic wrinkles down a Basset hound’s legs.

‘Goodness knows why he came up with a family cartoon strip about a dog!’ says Alex’s daughter, Arran Keith, 74, who with her husband Alistair Keith (who is wearing a Basset hound badge) keeps the legacy going from a home in East Sussex, fairly stuffed with Basset memorabilia.

A Fred Basset cartoon fom 1963, pictured above

‘Goodness knows why he came up with a family cartoon strip about a dog!’ says Alex’s daughter, Arran Keith (pictured with her husband above), 74, who with her husband Alistair Keith (who is wearing a Basset hound badge) keeps the legacy going from a home in East Sussex, fairly stuffed with Basset memorabilia

For while Alex — who preferred to be known as Alec and hailed from a very modest home in Dumfries — was a celebrated artist who had won every prize going at the Glasgow School of Art and has two drawings in the Imperial War Museum collection, he had a mental block when it came to drawing dogs and horses.

And it turned out he was especially bad at Basset hounds, which he once said he’d chosen for their very expressive faces, and because they were so trendy at the time —with Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and author Lady Antonia Fraser all having one.

The readers wrote in in droves exclaiming: ‘What is this extraordinary creature? It looks nothing like a Basset hound!’

So the Mail rushed to the rescue and bought Alex his very own Basset, Freda, who became his muse, model, great love and constant companion — in his studio, on the golf course, in the clubhouse and, naturally, on Alex and wife Winnifred’s bed.

And almost immediately Fred Basset started looking, well, an awful lot more Basset — lugubrious and with a somehow always ‘more human than hound’ air as he pondered his housemates.

As Alex once put it: ‘He thinks they’re stupid, of course, but he’s very loyal and affectionate.’

It was a quality that endeared Fred to millions. Within a few years, the number of Basset hound-registered owners went up six-fold and his fan mail grew. Letters from bishops, butchers, housewives and golfers, particularly.

Some insisted Fred should be honoured with high office — a role in Cabinet or maybe a knighthood. Famous fans included Snoopy creator Charles Schulz (left next to Alex Graham), and Hank Ketchum, inventor of Dennis the Menace, plus U.S.-based British writer P.G. Wodehouse, who — when the strip was dropped by his local paper, the Long Island Press — successfully campaigned for it to be reinstated

Some insisted Fred should be honoured with high office — a role in Cabinet or maybe a knighthood. Famous fans included Snoopy creator Charles Schulz, and Hank Ketchum, inventor of Dennis the Menace, plus U.S.-based British writer P.G. Wodehouse, who — when the strip was dropped by his local paper, the Long Island Press — successfully campaigned for it to be reinstated.

But Fred’s fame wasn’t confined to the English-speaking world. His strip went global, hugely loved in countries where trips to The Bull or the golf course and endless sausages for tea must have seemed rather odd.

In Germany he is known as Wurzel, in Italy he is Lillo and in Sweden he is Laban.

And there was merchandise. Cuddly Freds, Fred backpacks, duvet covers, soaps and talcum powders. Even a one-off, rather hectic Fred Basset wallpaper.

The only thing Alex wasn’t keen on was the 1970s BBC TV series in which Lionel Jeffries provided Fred’s voice. ‘Oh he hated it! Said the voice wasn’t nearly plummy enough,’ says Arran, her Basset hound earrings jingling.

But Fred was here to stay and the Graham family were set for life. Not that Alex wore his success any other way than lightly.

‘He was never the life and soul of a party,’ says Alistair. ‘He wasn’t really a man for telling jokes. But at dinner parties, something would catch his imagination and his hand would rootle around in his jacket pocket for a stub of pencil and he’d jot it down and it would turn up in one of his cartoons as a gag.’

And there was merchandise. Cuddly Freds, Fred backpacks, duvet covers, soaps and talcum powders. Even a one-off, rather hectic Fred Basset wallpaper

As his agent Simon Cryer once said of Alex, ‘Like Fred, he was a creature of habit. You could set your clock by him.’

‘I work in the mornings and evenings, purely,’ Alex said.

So he’d be in his exquisite garden studio from 9.30am to 1pm (with a break for coffee at 11am on the dot). Then he’d take the afternoon off completely, for golf.

The early evenings — up to two hours — were solely for inventing, in his ideas books; scribbling words, teeny Freds in every position, a spattering of self-portraits and scraps of dialogue.

‘I would never think of trying to

invent anything before 5.30pm,’ Alex said. Or after 7pm, for that matter. The rest of the evening was for whisky and music.

As Alex worked, Freda would always be with him. Lying by his feet in the studio. Lumbering alongside on the golf course. Warming herself by the electric fire in the evenings.

So he’d be in his exquisite garden studio from 9.30am to 1pm (with a break for coffee at 11am on the dot). Then he’d take the afternoon off completely, for golf

(Cryer once had a very lively discussion with the Inland Revenue on Alex’s behalf about the allowability of the upkeep of dogs. ‘We settled on a 50 per cent allowance for them,’ he said.)

But Freda was far, far more than a tax deduction. When she died, aged ten, Alex was distraught.

‘He was devastated. It was awful,’ recalls Arran. So awful that he went out and bought another Basset and called her Freda 2, and carried on.

Until 1991, when he died very suddenly.

‘He’d been a very heavy smoker and knew what was happening, but he didn’t tell his friends, he didn’t tell a soul,’ says Arran.

And when she and her mother were clearing out his studio, they had another surprise.

But Freda was far, far more than a tax deduction. When she died, aged ten, Alex was distraught

‘We found 18 months’ worth of daily cartoons, all ready to go,’ she says. ‘It gave us time to take stock, to come up with a plan.’

Which, it turned out, was stepping into the breach herself.

‘It had to be me. Fred has been part of my life since I was 14,’ says Arran. So for the past 30 years, Arran has helped come up with the words, while Michael Martin, a brilliant British artist, has provided the drawings.

And so Fred has continued to bring joy to fans, the most famous of whom was the late Queen: ‘We sent her the Jubilee originals’. Camilla adores Fred Basset, too.

‘Every so often we think, crikey, is it getting boring, should we add something new?’ says Arran. ‘We have tried to keep up with things. But gently. And we’d never venture into politics.’

So for the past 30 years, Arran has helped come up with the words, while Michael Martin, a brilliant British artist, has provided the drawings

Arran puts it best: ‘The message is the same. It’s not laugh-out-loud humour, just a little twinkle of warmth and joy when you open the paper.’ So Happy Birthday Fred and thank you. Because, 60 years on, we all still need that

So there’s an occasional mention of mobile phones or computers. Last Saturday there was a cricket one. This week it’s tennis.

Not long ago, there was an unfortunate error featuring Morse code in a strip, which generated a very animated correspondence with a Rear-Admiral from the Signals Division.

And I’m told there was once a very big deal made about changing the colour of the family sofa.

But these are the biggest dramas anyone can think of.

Which is presumably why Fred is still pootling about, digging holes, stealing from the butcher and cheering us all up.

Arran puts it best: ‘The message is the same. It’s not laugh-out-loud humour, just a little twinkle of warmth and joy when you open the paper.’

So Happy Birthday Fred and thank you. Because, 60 years on, we all still need that.

Source: Read Full Article