SO LONG MR SNOWMAN

Like everyone else who ever squealed with glee over Fungus the Bogeyman or shed a quiet tear over Ethel and Ernest, the inhabitants of WM Towers were saddened to learn of the death of beloved illustrator Raymond Briggs in August.

An appealing combination of endearing and curmudgeonly, Raymond Briggs created characters that truly touched people as well as entertaining them. He started creating his own books because he was appalled by the quality of many of the books he was illustrating for other people – his first, The Strange House, was published in 1961. It paved the way for a career that went from strength to strength and defied pigeonholing – just like his memorable characters. Who could forget his grumpy Father Christmas, or grotty anti-hero Fungus the Bogeyman? Who else could have had the vision to create picture books about nuclear war (Where the Wind Blows) or the Invasion of the Falklands (The Tin Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman) or to create a beautiful, intimately nostalgic look at a bygone era in Ethel and Ernest, the portrait of his parents’ quiet, loving marriage?

Perhaps most of all he’ll be remembered for The Snowman,

the magical Christmas classic that became a Channel 4 animated film. Briggs hated the adaptation, which added a festive visit to Santa to soften the blow of the Snowman melting, but millions of viewers loved it.

His final book, published in 2019, was Time for Lights Out – a prophetic title for the then-85 year-old artist that imagined ghosts looking round his home, talking about his books. ‘Snowman this and snowman that, / Tons and tons of tat.’ Here at WM

Towers, we hope he’s walking in the air.