The BRM as Giles saw it

The V16 BRM produced by Raymond Mays and his team did not enjoy great success and became a target for the newspaper cartoonist Carl Giles. Several cartoons were devoted to the car including this one which appeared in the Sunday Express on 7th September 1952. This copy was sent to us in June 2009 by former Bourne resident Ed Grummitt with the message: "My mum recently passed on and while clearing her house I decided to keep my dad's old Giles annuals which I used to devour as a lad. I found the attached gem today. Carl Giles did seem to have a bit of a thing about the mostly unsuccessful V16 BRM as this isn't his only portrayal! It is quite funny although I don't know how Raymond Mays took it at the time."

Ronald "Carl" Giles (1916-95), usually referred to simply as Giles, was a cartoonist whose work was published regularly by Beaverbrook Newspapers which owned by Daily and the Sunday Express. He used his cartoons to comment on topics of the day, his style being a single topical highly detailed panel, usually with a great deal more going on than the single joke. Recurring characters achieved a great deal of popularity, particularly the extended Giles family which first appeared in a published cartoon on 5th August 1945 and featured prominently from then on with the enigmatic matriarch known simply as Grandma. Another recurring favourite was Chalkie, the tyrannical school teacher whom Giles claimed was modelled on one of his childhood teachers, and Larry, the mop-haired child from next door, often seen with a camera, who it is said is the alter ego of Giles himself.

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