PHOTO: Willie Urquhart/WHFP
Thousands of cartoons, from the famed Angus Òg series, which for years appeared in the Daily Record, have been given a new home in Skye.
The collection of the comic strips were handed over to the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre in Portree, in recognition of Angus Òg creator Ewen Bain and his family links to Skye.
Ewen was brought up in Maryhill, Glasgow but his father John hailed from Waternish and his mother Flora from Staffin. Every summer of his youth was spent on the island.
The adventures of Angus, and the residents of Drambeg in the Utter Hebrides first featured in the Glasgow Bulletin in 1960, but soon moved to the Daily Record where it would enjoy a loyal cult following for nearly 30 years.
Ewen’s daughter Rhona Flin thought it was appropriate the artwork should find a home in Skye.
“My father grew up in the city, but in a very Glasgow-Skye household that would be familiar to many. There was Gaelic in the home and every summer would be spent back in Skye with relatives.
“Angus Òg was set in Drambeg in the Utter Hebrides, but the only island my father knew well himself was Skye!
“People still fondly remember the cartoons – they were full of topical references on local and national issues, which people will still relate to.”
Rhona inherited the collections after the death of her mother, Sheila, and set about finding a permanent home in which they could be displayed.
They had previously featured occasionally in museums and two books were made to showcase the collection.
“I was keen that they would be seen –they are there to looked at and enjoyed,” added Rhona, who lives in Aberdeen but spent two summers working in Skye in her youth.
Catherine MacPhee, archivist at the centre, said she was delighted to have taken delivery of the collection, which she said featured theme familiar to the modern audience.
She said: “The first Angus Òg strip I looked at back in 2019, when part of the collection arrived, was poking fun at the hordes of tourists arriving in Drambeg – at the time it made me giggle as we were mid tourist peak in Skye.
“It is important it survives as it is part of Scotland’s social history.”
Ewen Bain had initially been an art teacher, but left the profession to concentrate on his cartoons. Angus Òg ran six days a week in the Record and Sunday Mail until Ewen died in 1989, a victim of a flu epidemic which struck that year.
A new website AngusOg.scot has also been set up to allow people to see the cartoon creations.