Tony Hart dies

Anyone under 60 in Britain will, as a child, have watched Tony Hart drawing on television. Drawing pictures, painting, in fact anything to do with art. Anyone over 60 will have watched him as an interested adult, which means that everyone in the UK was familiar with Tony Hart. He had a 50 year television career. Not bad at all!

He died today, after being in poor health. As I'm one of the ones nearer sixty than six, I remember him back in Eamonn Andrew's days on Playbox. "Huh, huh, Tawny Hart, boys and girls!", Eamonn would chortle. And we were into a delightful period of black and white viewing. Hart said later on that basically all he was using in those days was grey chalk and white chalk on a piece of coloured drawing paper. So we were not missing the colour, then. That came with the invention of the magic marker and the introduction of colour television.

I will remember his laid back approach to his art with affection, even if I could not emulate him in any way. A real pro!