AND ANOTHER THING
Heading for a knocked- out Punch?
PAUL JOHNSON
Can it really be true that Punch is about to disappear? Its impending annihilation is depressing news in itself but even more dis- heartening is the resignation with which many of those connected with it accept that it is done for. That is surely nonsense. The paper has immense assets in its name, his- tory and associations. What it needs is a good editor. I vividly recall those glorious years, 1953-57, when Malcolm Muggeridge took it over and had the time of his life. He not only persuaded first-class writers like Claud Cockburn and Henry Fairlie to con- tribute some of the best pieces they ever wrote, but he managed to ginger up rather staid cartoonists like Leslie Illingworth into producing penetrating and savage com- ments on the times. It is a common misap- prehension that political artists should be left alone to produce their drawings. A few men of genius, like David Low and Vicky, can; most need to be given ideas. In the best part of a lifetime spent working for Punch, its greatest cartoonist, Tenniel, con- tributed the theme of only three of his drawings. It was Muggeridge's fertility in ideas, and his gift for sharpening up other people's notions, which gave his Punch such bite and made it, in the mid-Fifties, the most talked-about magazine in the country.
In the end, what makes journalism suc- cessful is the zest with which it reflects and comments upon the life around us. That is what Punch has so conspicuously lacked in recent decades. Its artists and writers have not been good enough. The Punch of old had truly formidable talents, who made it their business to take satire seriously. From its inception in 1841 to his death in 1864, John Leech contributed hundreds of fine drawings which presented, in wonderful detail, every aspect of horse-transport and the horse-trade, and those who lived by and suffered under it. These were matters of great concern to the middle classes in the 19th century. Why has the modern Punch failed to produce the Leech of the motor- car'? Leech also had a genius for drawing the women's fashions of the day. It amazes me that no artist performs the same func- tion now, though — God knows! — from Lagerfeld to Hamnett there is no lack of targets.
What distinguished the best Punch artists was technical skill, close observation and needle-sharp accuracy. Most of them drew from life, hired models if necessary, and prepared dozens of sketches for a single finished drawing. This tradition went on long after the end of the 19th century, till the second world war and even beyond. Gerald du Maurier on high society, George Belcher on charwomen and men in pubs, Louis Baumer on smart young ladies — Sloanes I suppose you would call them now — and Pont on the inhibited middle class: all were, in their own way, considerable artists, not only entertaining in their day but contributing a corpus of reliable com- ment of immense value to the historian. It is true, I suppose, that Punch never provid- ed a home for a great artist of the stature of Honore Daumier. But Phil May, at times, came close to it. Some of his parliamentary portrait sketches — he was particularly good on Gladstone, with his fierce eye — remind one of Rembrandt, with their immediacy and economy of line.
Punch never, even in its radical youth, succeeded in publishing writing of compa- rable quality, with the exception of Thack- eray's work in the 1840s. Nothing is more ephemeral than light essays and consciously comic prose, of the kind produced in prodi- gious quantities by E.V. Knox, say, and A.A. Milne. But Milne was sensationally
popular in his day. His collected Punch pieces always climbed onto the best-seller lists, and stayed there. Moreover, Punch was a notable patron of verse, much of it memorable. Owen Seaman, who eventually became editor of the paper, collecting first a knighthood, then a baronetcy like Denis Thatcher, produced a huge range of high- quality verse, varying from parodies to seri- ous wartime ballads. Does anyone now read his collections, such as In Cap and Bells (1899) or Made in England (1916)? Probably not: but this kind of neatly con- trived verse, gay or grim, was relished at the time — he was as popular, in his own way, as John Betjeman in our times — and sold the paper. Milne's verses were in a dif- ferent category, and are still enjoyed and even memorised in the 1990s. All the best originally appeared in Punch, superbly illustrated by that graceful artist E.H. Shep- herd — who, again, took immense pains to get the details right; he drew children as well as Sargent. Milne's collections, When We Were Very Young (1924), Winnie-the- Pooh (1926) and Now We Are Six (1928), sold more copies, on both sides of the Atlantic, than any other verse since Ten- nyson and Kipling. It says a lot for the edi- torial blindness of Punch in more recent times that it failed to find a replacement for Milne, and made little if any use of such appropriate talents as Betjeman and Larkin.
My guess is that the public appetite for high-quality, well-observed comic drawing, neatly contrived verse and funny prose is as voracious as it ever was, and all the sharper for being unsatisfied. There are artists of tremendous gifts around — look at Posy Simmonds, for example. There are acid- tongued poets too. I have just been admir- ing the collection of Wendy Cope, Serious Concerns: exactly the contributor for a revi- talised Punch, I'd say. Nor are we short of those who can raise a laugh even at a grey 1990's breakfast-table, from Kingsley Amis to Matthew Parris and Frank Johnson. In short, there are the ability, the skills, the experience to constitute a first-class comic- satiric vehicle as good as in Punch's vintage years. All that is needed is the master-hand — maybe the mistress-hand — to put the thing together. But it seems to me a miser- able comment on our lack of crusading fighting spirit that the once-great magazine should be allowed to go down without a last stand.
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