DID you see today's Lumsdon?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
That was the catch cry for decades among Novocastrians on seeing Les Lumsdon's daily newspaper cartoon.
A popular Newcastle Herald cartoonist for 30 years, when he died in 1977 aged 64 years, just after his early retirement, the whole Hunter Region mourned.
A likeable and modest man with an impish sense of fun, he had the common touch. His drawings poked gentle fun at people and institutions to give readers a laugh over the breakfast table to start the day.
Lumsdon built up a huge public following and eventually put out five volumes of cartoons, complete with his daily trademarks of a skinny black cat called Casper and an apple core.
One of Lumsdon's proudest boasts was that he went through 17 ballpoint pens autographing copies of his book one year at the Newcastle Show.
And never in a million pen strokes did Newcastle-based military historian David Dial think he'd uncover a hidden side of the late cartoonist.
It came about recently after some people moving house called on him to become custodian of some unique World War II memorabilia before it was lost.
"I'm very grateful. It turned out to be Les Lumsdon's missing wartime photo album and a most unusual wartime souvenir sent through the mail," Dial said.
"It was a large coconut 'letter' addressed to young Eric Nicolle, of Coolamin Road, Waratah. Lumsdon's [now faded] wartime service number was even painted on it.
"Lumsdon was born at Abermain and lived later at Belmont. In World War II, he worked in a Newcastle camouflage unit before spending two years in wartime New Guinea.
"Here, Lumsdon made Christmas cards for homesick American servicemen, especially. That's why his album should be treasured. Besides six of his wartime postcards inside it, there are four Japanese banknotes, in English. I believe it was proposed to use them as currency after Australia was invaded," Dial said.
"There are also 130 rare postcard-size and smaller pictures of wrecks, Japanese skulls at Buna, natives in war paint, canoes, war cemeteries, aircraft, headhunters and bare-breasted native girls in grass skirts," he said.
"There's also a small photograph of a tree once used by a Japanese sniper to shoot 53 Aussie and American soldiers.
"As many people with World War I or World War II items get older, they sometimes throw out prized family items. I'm appealing to help conserve these memories by giving them a new home instead," Dial said.
Lumsdon is again in the news with a special exhibition (until February) of his art upstairs at Newcastle City Library in Laman Street, as well as featuring in Greg Ray's latest book on old Newcastle.
Eric Nicolle, now aged 80, remembered receiving the same coconut in the mail in either 1943 or 1944.
"I was about 11 years old. It came as a complete surprise," he said.
"I had to tap the nut to get the milk out before sticking the end of a pen, which broke off, in the hole. I then put shellac [lacquer] on the coconut to preserve it."
Nicolle had met Lumsdon only occasionally. The odd coconut memento came possibly because Lumsdon's wife Vera worked with his aunt at a West End produce merchants.
"As for the album, Lumsdon's wife probably gave it to me via my aunt after he died [in October 1977].
"She knew I was interested in World War II aircraft and there were a few pictures of them in the album.
"I've still kept a book of Lumsdon cartoons, though," Nicolle said.
The news that Lumsdon mailed a Waratah boy a wartime "coconut letter" surprised, but didn't shock, former Herald head artist Col Richardson, of Maitland.
"My uncle also once sent me a similar object from overseas," he said.
Richardson worked for years with Lumsdon and found him to be a character.
"I remember one day he came into our art room doing a soft shoe shuffle, looking very pleased with himself. He'd just opened his personal metal locker at work and must have forgotten what was stuffed inside years before," Richardson said.
"He had his heavy military boots, a Pacific island grass skirt, a lae, a military brown hat and his own wobbleboard, like the Rolf Harris one. This must have been in the 1970s."
"I remember Les telling his World War II story of how he made 'captured' Japanese enemy flags, putting bullet holes in them to sell to Yank soldiers for a fortune as war trophies," he chuckled.
David Dial can be contacted by writing to PO Box 513, Belmont, NSW 2280.
