Geoff Laws

About

Geoffrey Frederick Laws was born in 1947 in Blyth, a busy shipbuilding and coal exporting port in Northumberland. He loved drawing from a very early age and was encouraged with gifts of sketch pads and pencils. By the time he went to Blyth Grammar School in 1959 he was drawing cartoon faces, seeing how far he could distort them in amusing ways. Geoff recalls “My interest in caricature grew! I soon discovered that there was a fine line between capturing a likeness and missing [it] altogether. I never dreamt that twenty years later I’d be drawing caricatures for the TV Times.

In sixth form at school he moved from copying caricatures to using live models, his teachers, drawing them during lessons. He recalls at the end of one lesson a teacher turned to Laws and said “Well, did you get me?”. Laws had thought he had been clever and discreet hiding the drawing behind a pile of books and haversacks.

Leaving school in 1965 Geoff went to Newcastle College of Art and Design for four years studying Industrial Design. During the summer holidays he worked as a labourer for Blyth Harbour Commission and when he left college, was offered a job in the Engineers Department of the Harbour Commission. His job was to measure new buildings and their locations and add them to the plans of the harbour. Pleasant though the job was it wasn’t going anywhere so after nine months he decided to leave. He next worked for a firm of vehicle body part suppliers called James & Bloom in Shieldfield, Newcastle. The job was to design and print their leaflets. Geoff recalls, “I learned how to operate a printing press, they said it was either that or teach a printer how to design leaflets. I had to leave after four months because I couldn’t manage the obligatory bacon, egg, sausage, mushroom and tomato stotties that came with the morning tea break.”

Employment opportunities in product design weren’t looking very hopeful in the North East and in 1970 Geoff moved to London where he managed to get a job with an American management consultants called Booze Allen and Hamilton International. He was employed as a designer in their graphics department. After three years, the glamour of London was reduced to a daily grind and Geoff was drawn back to the North-east, “A decision I never regretted. Years later when the possibility of working in Fleet Street arose I wasn’t even tempted. I soon discovered you didn’t have to live in London to work for national and international newspapers.”

On returning to Newcastle in 1973 Geoff worked for McAlpines the builders for about nine months when the job of Editorial Artist for the Thomson newspapers in Newcastle was advertised. There were three papers at the centre, The Journal, The Evening Chronicle and the Sunday Sun and Geoff would be the only artist for all three, “I was offered the job and in April 1974 started work at the office in the Groat Market. Little did I know that it would turn out to be my perfect job and that I would be there for 35 years!”

Drawing cartoons and caricatures was not part of the employment brief, but because Geoff enjoyed doing them they soon became a big part of his output and an opportunity to develop his skills in that direction. In 1980 the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain decided to make a big event of their annual cartoon competition with an awards ceremony at the Cafe Royal in London. Geoff recalls, “I submitted some caricatures and was amazed and excited to receive an invitation to the awards ceremony. I was even more amazed and excited to come second to Wally Fawkes (Trog), my all-time caricaturing hero, with my caricature of Jeremy Thorpe at the time of his conspiracy to murder trial in 1979”. In 1981 Geoff submitted again and was made Feature Cartoonist of the year with his caricature of President Ronald Reagan as an aging cowboy. Then the following year he was again runner-up Feature Cartoonist with his caricature of MP Cyril Smith.

In 1982, following the publicity surrounding Geoff’s work after the awards, he came to the attention of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror who approached him with commissions. He did many caricatures of politicians throughout the eighties for them using the pen name ‘Starling’. “The Daily Mirror would send a list of politicians that they wanted me to caricature, then they would use them in the paper instead of photographs”. Around that time Geoff also did caricatures for the Radio Times and TV Times, again under the pen name of Starling, because permission was supposed to be granted by the editor at Thomson newspapers if he worked for anyone else and that wasn’t readily given. “I spent some anxious moments when my work appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror and as full pages in the TV Times convinced that it would be recognised. Fortunately it never was and the editor eventually relented and gave me permission to work for the other publications.” Geoff alson drew caricatures of celebrities for the Saturday TV page of the Evening Chronicle and the Sunday Sun, then every day for The Journal. This continued until he left The Journal in 2009.

In 1983 Geoff was approached by Compass News Features, a news agency that was setting up in Luxembourg, funded by the Agha Khan. Their intention was to supply illustrated features to newspapers all round the world and they wanted drawings and caricatures of world leaders, politicians and sports people. The features were published by newspapers in more than thirty countries in Africa, South America, the Middle and Far East. After a while they also developed a cartoon strip called Down South that was set in Africa and featured the lives of two boys called Amo and Amas, written by Gerry Loughran. Compass did well for eight years but unfortunately they were overtaken by the technology of the internet and closed in 1991.

From 1997-1999 Geoff did social commentary cartoons for The Herald newspaper in Glasgow and celebrity caricatures for its sister paper the Sunday Mail. Geoff also spent many years doing caricatures for The Pink and the Evening Chronicle’s Saturday sports paper. From 2001 through to 2006 Geoff did a cartoon strip in collaboration with Paul Tully called Jack the Mag for the Newcastle United programme. Jack the Mag lasted nearly six seasons before NUFC had to tighten its belt and make cutbacks. Between 1986 and 1993 Geoff enjoyed working with the Live Theatre Company in Newcastle. The theatre is in a converted warehouse down by the river Tyne. “The director Max Roberts would give me the scripts and I had to imagine the scenes to create a poster.” The company had limited resources at the time so the posters were done with just two colours. “I enjoyed the challenge of creating separate drawings for each shade of each colour to produce the blends when printed.” In 1999 Geoff was approached by Ozzie Riley, director of the locally based Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company, and asked if he would be interested in sculpting some caricature heads for giant figures to be used in Newcastle’s millennium celebrations. “I had never done anything remotely like that before but thought it could be a new challenge! I did the heads of local heroes Alan Shearer, Jimmy Nail, Sting and Bobby Thompson.” Thus began a fifteen year association with Dodgy Clutch, a developing interest in sculpture and an opportunity to work in three dimensions.

Geoff continued to work with Dodgy Clutch until 2014 creating many different sculptures. He found the experience of working with the creative team of people in Dodgy Clutch very enjoyable in contrast to his normal solitary place in front of a drawing board. “When I left The Journal in 2009 I decided that it was a good time to tackle some of my own projects that had been waiting in the wings.” In 2010 he published his autobiography, Geoff Laws a Cartoonist’s Chronicle, and in 2015 he produced Plumstone of Rabthoom, a long narrative illustrated poem, and Bobby Baboon and his Strawberry Balloon, an illustrated children’s poem dedicated to his granddaughter.

Geoff has had a lifelong love of music, playing guitar and keyboards in bands from being a teenager. After retiring he took the opportunity to focus on his music, and what started as a catch-up with some old material blossomed into an extremely absorbing and enjoyable creation of new pieces. He has now cast aside his drawing board with no regrets, only going back to it for the occasional book illustration or portrait of family pets!