The new album contains a lovely version of ‘Something’ – I assume The Beatles were a great influence on Toby Twirl? Rupert Bear had the body of a human boy, and the head of a bear. Many of his friends had human bodies and animal heads, although other characters included humans, dwarves, ogres, and talking birds.

During World War II, she joined the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) in 1941, and met her husband-to-be who was at that time serving in the RAF (Royal Air Force). They married in 1942 and have (as reported in 2003) two daughters, Tania (born in 1945) and Domini (born in 1948). When did you become aware of the escalating prices for the Tony Twirl singles and the cult following for the band? Nothing in Toby Twirl's later adventures explains this earlier history - famed as a Witch killer, and “many things” – of a seemingly ordinary pig-headed young boy wearing overalls (initially blue, but soon to be a trade-mark red) who enjoys a holiday at the seaside.

Elizabeth Gaunt

We were half way through our act when suddenly the audience (mostly pensioners) got out of their seats and started to run towards the stage. I thought we were going to get invaded, was this Saga Mania? The title of this very first “Rupert Bear” newspaper comic strip was “Little Lost Bear”. It also had a short explanatory subtitle: “Mrs. Bear sends her little son Rupert to market”.

In Christopher Fowler's column for The Independent, “Invisible Ink: No 199 - Sheila Hodgetts” (Sunday 17 November 2013), Fowler begins: Before illustrating the first of the stories, Toby Twirl in Pogland, Edward Jeffrey had worked for the publishing company, Sampson, Low, producing a large number of book-cover illustrations for adult novels. Happily, the band have stayed in touch and there have been two reunions in Newcastle in the past couple of years. The second of which was attended by our erstwhile roadie, Colin Hart, who now lives in Florida. Colin went on to work for Mathews Southern Comfort, Deep Purple and Rainbow. Toby Twirl (born in 1946), would have been at least sixty-one in 2007, but he doesn’t seem a day over ten, and still as resourceful as ever!

We did a couple of sessions for the BBC 50 years ago like dozens of other groups at the time. The BBC had what they called ‘needle time’ restrictions imposed by the Musicians Union and were limited to the amount of records they could play. Nothing has come to light on any compilation to my knowledge. As we did not have any hits the recordings were probably wiped years ago. Fifty years is a long time! Mary Tourtel (1874-1948) was a children's illustrator, married to Herbert Bird Tourtel, an assistant editor of the Daily Express. Tourtel devised Rupert Bear shortly after the end of World War I, in 1920, when the Daily Express was in competition with The Daily Mail and its then popular comic strip “Teddy Tail” (featuring a mouse called “Teddy Tail”), as well as with the comic strip “Pip, Squeak and Wilfred” (respectively, these are the names of a dog, penguin, and rabbit) in the Daily Mirror. Dropped in to see Hollie at the Joiners a while ago (probably a few years ago??) a pleasant chat although he was running the pub during our visit so the conversation was a bit short? Jim Routledge -original drummer with The Shades of Blue -22/8/11 The first book, Toby in Pogland, was produced in large format and published in 1946. Four other large format books followed. The standard sized annual format, also published in 1946, began a series that continued until 1958, totalling 14 in all. There were also other formats including small strip books, pop-up books and jigsaws. A series of 8 Toby Twirl Tales, each with two stories, were published between 1950 and 1954. [1] The Stories [ edit ] But here, with Hodgetts’ first story about Toby Twirl we return to Tourtel's medieval Grimms’-like milieu of dark magic.