"Tiger Tim and the Bruin Boys", Playhour, 1959
Harold McCready was born in Salford, Manchester, on 22 February 1897, the son of Samuel McCready, an Irish schoolteacher, and his wife Eliza, née McCance. He left school at 14 and worked as a colliery labourer in Broughton, before signing up with the Notts & Derby Regiment, becoming a Second Lieutenant in the Warwick Regiment during the First World War. After the war he moved to London and became an animator, working on the Bonzo series, based on George E. Studdy's comic strips.
By the 1930s he was working in comics, drawing "In the Days of Robin Hood" (1934) for The Boys' and Girls' Daily Mail, and "Invaded by Vikings" (1934) for Jolly Jack's Weekly, a supplement of the Sunday Dispatch. He painted painting "Jolly Days with Dicky and Dolly" (1956-60) (1959), "Leo the Friendly Lion" (1960) and "Sooty" (1960-61) for Playhour, and "Jack and Jill of Buttercup Farm" (1957) for Jack and Jill.
His editors remember him as an uncommunicative man who would hand over his work with barely a word. He was a fan of bullfighting, and took a great deal of footage on a 35mm film camera. He died in Richmond upon Thames in early 1972, aged 75.
References[]
- Steve Holland, Harold McCready, Bear Alley, 1 March 2012