Readers’ Letters
SIR: I inherited Wilfred from Larry, whose quick, witty drawings set the template for the ne’er-do-well.
The space then went a bit cinemascope – full colour. Cue Wilfred in crowds, gay parades in Brighton, Last Supper Oxford dinners with Terry Waite, Lourdes, French ferries and Gothic cathedrals.
You never knew what you’d be drawing, but the tone was always charming, particularly when he wrote about women. Wilfred must have been quite a player as a young, successful Beeb producer, as optimism with the opposite sex burned brightly. These were the best of reminiscences, and I got to draw a lot of femmes fatales with big hair, ’60s eyeliner and French cigarettes. Indeed, the last time I saw De’ath, looking deceptively well at The Oldie’s Christmas party last December, he marvelled that I had caught one such bohemian lover so perfectly. Existentialist magic all round.
Opening his copy was like getting a postcard from a black-sheep uncle you rarely met.
Sadly, more recently, it was sketching the descent – sleeping bags on cold Cambridge night-shelter floors; hospital beds with drips. It’s still a shock he’s gone. Wilfred was good at seeing off Oldie editors. Harry Mount has had a narrow escape.
It was a privilege illustrating the rogue. As a cartoonist, you mostly draw strangers; Wilfred became kin. Every month, I’ll miss him.
RIP – but rant in Heaven. Steve Way, Wilfred De’ath’s illustrator, St Neots, Cambridgeshire