At home with Graeme Bandeira - The Yorkshire Post's award-winning cartoonist

One week he is depicting Boris Johnson washing his hands of his problems, the next a lone nurse with the weight of the world, shaped like a virus, on her fragile shoulders.

They define how Britain’s year changed in just a matter of days in March. They also depict how 2020 altered the perspective of The Yorkshire Post’s now national award-winning ‘illustrator extraordinaire’.

As he, too, started working from home, his work required a new thoughtfulness to reflect the tragedy of these times. Little did he realise, however, that it would also be, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, his finest hour.

His illustrations took on a new poignancy and significance for regular readers. They also attracted a national and international following from a new era of digital subscribers, hence today’s special production celebrating Yorkshire’s year in cartoons ­– another first for this paper.

But it can all be traced back to that defining image of a Nightingale nurse which was so impactful that it required no words to explain the goodwill message Bandeira wanted to convey.

“It was important at the time to inform people of what would be happening to society rather than poking fun at politicians,” he said as he put the finishing touches to his 250th image of the year.

“It wasn’t a welcome diversion – none of us wanted this virus – but you had to get the tone right with the NHS at capacity. It was important to inform readers of the seriousness of the situation.

“A week after I drew Boris washing his hands of everything, the nurse was my first Covid cartoon and it was our way, as a paper, of showing our respect for the NHS.”

It struck a chord and Bandeira was inundated with supportive messages – some from hospital staff working all hours who admitted that their morale was buoyed by such creative recognition.

So, too, did the subsequent Be Kind series which championed key workers in the aftermath of Bandeira’s most spontaneous – and, arguably, most powerful – piece of work in 2020.

This was the emotive black and white sketch of supermarket shelves stripped bare by panic buyers as an elderly lady walks along an aisle with an empty basket.

“I was in Asda, it was sheer pandemonium. It was carnage, absolute carnage,” recalled Bandeira. “At the end of the aisle, I saw this lost-looking lady – she was forlorn.

“I genuinely felt sorry for her and I thought I would keep that image of her in my mind and try and do something positive to help people like her. I hope she’s okay and has a good Christmas.”

Never, in Bandeira’s career, has one of his drawings had such an impact – and response – as its publication coincided with supermarkets taking steps to prioritise the elderly and NHS workers.

Popular beforehand with regular readers and Twitter followers thanks to a ‘cheeky chappie’ persona, he now had a new generation of supporters wanting to share and promote his work.

Bandeira singles out, amongst others, TV presenter Jeremy Vine and Adam Boulton, the political warhorse on Sky News. The singer Beverley Knight has become an acquaintance.

The media path to Bandeira’s studio in, first, the conservatory of his Harrogate home, and then spare bedroom, became as well-trodden as the grounds at Great Yorkshire Show in normal times as he became adept at socially distanced interviews – and sketches.

When footballer Marcus Rashford received a MBE for his agenda-setting child food poverty campaign, a simple late night drawing, produced in just an hour, of the footballer arriving at Buckingham Palace – and headlined 'Today’s Fixture; Palace Away’ – was a fitting honour for this role model.

The even greater honour was a request from Rashford’s team for some copies of the drawing for his inspirational mother - and then the player returning one, duly signed, to Bandeira.

“When you watch him in interviews, he’s very eloquent and very clear. A grounded individual who is the most apt role model out there for children. A phenomenal footballer and an even more phenomenal man,” eulogises the cartoonist.

Watching TV interviews is also integral to Bandeira’s job. While his colleagues listen attentively to what is being said, the 46-year-old is invariably studying the mannerisms of public figures who might feature in subsequent cartoons.

It can, invariably, take five or six attempts to capture someone at their best - or unflattering worst – in pencil or crayon. Others, he says, are as routine as “putting the password in your computer”.

The best, says Bandeira who first started to draw on walls and curtains as a mischievous child, is the Prime Minister. “Boris has become a caricature of himself. He’s comedy gold. Donald Trump is a close second.”

The most challenging, he ventures, are Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock - the past and present health secretaries. He describes them as “dull characters with few distinguishing or redeeming features”. He says Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and President-elect Joe Biden could pose similar creative challenges in 2021, and he’s already watching them intently.

And the hardest, he says, are female politicians because he’s conscious of not adding to the unwarranted abuse that they face.

That said, it didn’t stop him depicting Theresa May with a very pointed nose and bags under her eyes and she didn’t complain when she had an audience with Bandeira (or was it the other way round)?

Likewise the Queen – whether it be Her Majesty’s handbag or corgis that help provide a point of focus to Bandeira’s work and helped provide some moments of levity in 2020 thanks to her Royal Ascot winner and then the Windsor family’s holiday arrangements at Balmoral.

Could a first Royal commission and MBE (Member of the Bandeira Empire) await in 2021? Time will tell.

It was the same, as the year passed, with politicians – and The Yorkshire Post’s cartoon conference every Thursday at 10.30am when ideas are discussed with Ian Day, the Deputy Editor, and Tom Richmond, the Comment Editor.

The most enjoyable 30 minutes of the working week for all, they’re also some of the most important because of the importance of getting the tone right from Covid and symbolism of great acts of remembrance to championing Yorkshire – or poking gentle fun at those in power.

It’s the little details that can often make a cartoon like the ‘Beware of the Boris’ sign – as opposed to bull – as the new series of All Creatures Great and Small was given the full Bandeira treatment.

Or the choice of beers at The Track and Trace hostelry when the Prime Minister became landlord for the day with close friends to reopen the pubs - those on tap included Hancock’s Half (flat); Rishi’s Special Brew (refreshing) and Ye Olde Mogg (bitter and only available in old money).

Devising the names - the Northern Poor House was another - was a labour of love and rewarded with the drawing being voted Britain’s political cartoon of the year - much deserved national recognition. Nonetheless, not all cartoons are smooth - pun intended - and one of Bandeira’s very best never made it into print.

In the week of the Chancellor’s Spending Review, it was decided to depict a socially distanced Johnson and Sunak in Downing Street with a very austere and sorry looking Christmas tree under the heading ‘Tis the season to be jolly careful’ (spot the double meaning).

Yet, as Bandeira was inking in Sunak’s ‘It’s all we can afford’ speech bubble, Downing Street was – in fact – taking delivery of a superb festive spruce grown in Yorkshire.

“We had Dilyn, the PM’s dog, cocking his leg against our tree. We couldn’t be seen to be ridiculing a local firm,” said Bandeira who had to quickly resort to plan B. “Mind, if it had been from Lancashire, it would have been game on.”

Such anecdotes and asides also reflected the increased assuredness of Middlesbrough-born Bandeira who first joined The Yorkshire Post in 1998 to help design and enliven advertisements for customers.

He joined the editorial team in 2000 and some of his first cartoons to appear in print were used to illustrate the still weekly columns by Sir Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher’s former press secretary.

Ingham’s positive response, despite being on the receiving end of mocking and ridicule, proved, in hindsight, to be a great source of encouragement and confidence.

And the culmination of Bandeira’s work – he was given a weekly Saturday platform in the paper in 2016 – came when he was asked to produce a 100th birthday tribute to Yorkshire’s very own Captain Sir Tom Moore, the man of the year, that was then chauffeur-driven by Rolls Royce to the NHS fundraiser’s home for presentation by the aforementioned Jeremy Vine live on national television.

“I thought the Captain Tom story was fantastic, truly wonderful,” said Bandeira. “What he did was extraordinary. And to watch him open my drawing on TV, that was another notch on the CV. It made my year.” And Captain Tom’s judging by his response.

As for the new year, Bandeira is looking forward to drawing Stephen Cottrell, the new Archbishop of York, and, hopefully, Yorkshire’s Olympians and Paralympians winning gold in Tokyo. He fears a cartoon of his beloved Middlesbrough winning promotion to the Premier League under Neil Warnock might be one miracle too many to expect.

The acrylic inks are ready to be added to special Bristol Board paper that he uses to get the most out of the colours he chooses. “It’s a really smooth transition. Unlike Brexit.”

But he will always look back on 2020 with professional pride – and how the news agenda, as bleak as it was, made such a lasting impression on the country and Bandeira.

As such, the last word goes to Graeme Bandeira when he’s asked to sum up the past year in a single sentence: “A mixture of emotions – surreal, fulfilling and liberating.”