Mail on Sunday's peerless cartoonist Stan 'Mac' McMurtry is chosen as an Oldie of the Year alongside former Rolling Stone and iconic film director

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The Mail on Sunday’s peerless cartoonist Stan ‘Mac’ McMurtry has been chosen as an Oldie of the Year.

Praised for ‘making news pages brighter by putting in a laugh’, 88-year-old Mac was selected for The Oldie magazine’s award, alongside former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, also 88; film director Mike Leigh, 81; and actress Nanette Newman, 90.

All winners were described by judge Gyles Brandreth as ‘still having snap in their celery’.

Receiving his special ‘old lead in his pencil’ honour at a ceremony in London, Mac said: ‘You’ve made an oldie feel very much a youngie.’

Writing in 2018 when he retired from the Daily Mail after 50 glorious years - before starting to again draw regular cartoons for the Mail on Sunday - the newspaper legend gave an insight into his his riotous own recollections at the paper...

Praised for ‘making news pages brighter by putting in a laugh’, 88-year-old Mac was selected for The Oldie magazine’s award

Back in the mid-Seventies, the American actor John Wayne announced that he was coming to the UK to make a film called Brannigan. My cartoon in the Daily Mail the next day captured the excitement of The Duke’s arrival.

After it was published, his agent got in touch, saying that Mr Wayne would like the original cartoon. I asked if I could hand it over personally. ‘OK,’ said the agent. ‘Be at the Connaught hotel at twelve tomorrow.’ My editor thought this was a great photo-opportunity, so he sent a photographer with me.

A similar request had been made to the cartoonist of the Evening News, Bernard Cookson, so he with his photographer and I with mine turned up at the Connaught.

‘Guys,’ his agent said as we met in the foyer, ‘I have bad news. The Duke has been called to the TV studios so he isn’t able to meet you.’

Seeing our disappointment, he said: ‘But the Duke feels so badly about it he wants to buy you lunch. So go up to his apartment and room service will attend to whatever you want.’

The idiot! Letting four journalists loose in John Wayne’s apartment? We were in there nearly all afternoon. We ate a sumptuous lunch, washed down with copious amounts of wine. We smoked his cigars and ended up with a brandy or two.

I kept expecting John Wayne to appear in the doorway as he had in so many Westerns, and blast us all with his six-guns. So if his former agent is still alive and reading this, I apologise for taking such advantage of his hospitality. Unforgivable!

If you’d told me when I was a young man that this was the kind of adventure I’d enjoy as a Fleet Street cartoonist, I would have taken it with a very large pinch of salt. Back then I was grateful to find any kind of gainful employment at all.

Almost exactly 62 years ago, at the age of 20, I was nearing the end of a two-year stint in the Army and wondering what I should do with myself when I became a civilian once more.

Although I’d been to art college before my National Service, there didn’t seem to be any job prospects in the offing. But quite honestly, looking back, I can’t remember being overly worried about being out of work.

I’ve always embraced the philosophy that ‘something will turn up’ and, as it turned out, I was right. With about a month to go before I was penniless, I received a letter from an old friend telling me her son was starting a cartoon animation company in Henley-on-Thames, and was looking for young artists to train as animators.

I applied, got the job and, thanks to the skill, patience and friendship of my new boss, Nick Spargo, took my first steps into the world of cartooning.

Nick turned me from a lazy slob into a hardworking, eager-to-learn slob, and two or three years later I became one of his key animators. I wasn’t earning much money but was enjoying every minute.

After a film was completed, there would often be a three or four-week gap while we waited for a new commission, and I used that spare time, sometimes working well into the night, to send gag cartoons off to any newspaper or magazine that carried cartoons.

It took four years of bombarding the Press with my humble offerings — and accumulating hundreds of reject slips — before one brave publisher bought a cartoon. At last!

I was sent a cheque for eleven pounds and ten shillings — a huge amount of money for one rather bad drawing, considering that at that time I was only earning ten pounds a week as an animator. I decided there and then that this was what I wanted to do: become a newspaper cartoonist.

That meant leaving the animation studio and becoming a freelancer — a step into the unknown. To pay the rent and feed my family, I drew three pages a week for children’s comics. I illustrated articles in various magazines written by scientists, golfers, squash players, joggers, chess masters and any other grey page of print that needed brightening up. I tried my hand at cards for birthdays, weddings, Valentine’s, births and getting well soon. Anything to earn a crust.

But my priority was to get known as a gag cartoonist, and I think it was through my work in Punch magazine that I was noticed by the editor of the Daily Sketch (a sister paper of the Daily Mail), who got in touch and asked if I’d like to have a go at being that paper’s social and political cartoonist.

It was an offer too good to refuse, and for me a dream come true. That was 50 years ago. Two years later, The Daily Sketch was closed down and absorbed by the Daily Mail. I was one of the lucky ones who moved over to the more popular paper.

Despite all that, for me it has been the most remarkable half a century. I still can’t quite believe so many decades have slipped by. It has been a thrilling ride. I have worked, and still do, with some wonderfully gifted journalists who have become friends as well as colleagues. Doors have been unexpectedly opened for me, small privileges granted and excitements provided.

I remember drawing a cartoon of the Beatles when they were the most famous band in the world. At the time I enjoyed their music but thought they, like most pop groups, would have a limited time in the limelight, then be forgotten. So I wasn’t overexcited when their agent got in touch to ask for the original drawing.

I sent it to him, then forgot about it. Two weeks later a crate of Glenfiddich whisky arrived at my office, together with the fab four’s Abbey Road LP, signed by each of the Beatles.

Among the many other highlights were being asked for a drawing by Frank Sinatra and receiving a signed thank-you letter, being sent theatre tickets by Sir Laurence Olivier and stripping off at a nudist colony to hand over an original.

I have also been invited to Downing Street by Margaret Thatcher, awarded ‘Cartoonist of the year’ seven times, written a successful children’s book and, best of all, been presented with an MBE — and had a friendly chat — with Her Majesty The Queen.

Regular readers of the Daily Mail will probably know that for many years I have drawn within each cartoon a small sketch of my wife Liz’s face. She is always hidden somewhere in the daily drawing — perhaps in the pattern of a curtain, in a puddle or in the branches of a tree. She has become so popular that I am sent cuttings by readers who have had difficulty finding her, asking me to pinpoint where she is hidden.

Sadly, my darling wife passed away in 2017 from motor neurone disease, so in her memory I have continued to include her each day in my cartoon.

Dear readers, it has been a wonderful 50 years. Full of challenges, remarkable stories, fun and laughter. So what have I learnt? That older people are much easier to draw: more lines, fewer teeth! Golda Meir, the former Israeli prime minister, was a good example, and Donald Trump was a gift from heaven for cartoonists.

David Cameron, with his shiny face, was fairly easy. So, too, were Ted Heath, Harold Wilson with his pipe and Margaret Thatcher with her bouffant hairstyle.

I always struggle with beautiful young women . . . let me rephrase that. I always find them harder to draw. Not only young women but young men, too. Tony Blair was difficult when he was first elected but somehow became easier as he grew older.

But all good things come to an end, and I have reluctantly decided to hang up my pencil. After this week, a wonderful new cartoonist will be taking my place, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy his work. Thank you for the support and all the delightful letters and emails you’ve sent me over the years. Have a great Christmas and a healthy, happy New Year. Goodbye!