I still don’t know why Dave Donaldson, who’s been scripting The Broons and Oor Wullie since 1963, asked me to take over from him. Maybe it was the way I kept saying “michty me” when under severe stress during our hillwalking or cycling expeditions. Or the long hours spent planning (ahem) said expeditions in various hostelries. Crivvens, ah dinna ken.
Anyway, 2005 was my year of Broonsisms and Wullie lore. I learned the secret origins of Fat Bob, the dark sexual antics of Maggie and Daphne, I sat in the boardroom at DC Thomson HQ in Dundee and fondled the Thomson family … mugs. They all had their own mugs, names indelibly inked. Bet Rupert Murdoch doesn’t do that. Maybe Lachlan and Elizabeth have their own Sevres tea services. Cobber.
I worked with the genius who draws the Broons, one of only three artists ever to do so. Peter Davidson, hidden away in the wilds of Glenesk, produces those exquisite interpretations of the scripts I found taking over my life. Every week of the year, two weeks in advance, each waking moment thinking not about my own family, but about Daphne (how much weight can we make her lose?), Maw (gastric band?), Horace, and the rest of them. The Twins? Yes, I know their first names. But if I told you I’d have to kill you.
The day I saw Hen coming out of Lerwick Co-op, arm in arm with Wullie’s ma, closely followed by Primrose, Horace and Desperate Dan, I knew it was time to move on to other things. Like therapy of some kind. Jings, said the first counsellor I approached. Crivvens, you’re in a bit of a state. Fancy a pint doon the Boolin Club? Help ma boab, yes, I replied.
The 70th anniversary of the strip was in 2006, and this year marks the 70th birthday of that bi-annual wonder, The Broons. Strips go in each annual from years of Sunday Posts. There’s even some of mine in this year’s. I daren’t look.
Dave Donaldson is now back doing the job he was born to, writing the scripts and masterminding the annuals and the phenomenally successful spin-offs like Maw Broon’s various cookbooks. As usual, the Broons annual, and the now customary “classic” souvenir publication, were bestsellers this Christmas, and numbers five and six in the children’s book chart. Which seems odd, as they’re not really for children. At least that’s not what the voices in my head kept telling me …
Tom Morton is a writer and broadcaster, and the only non-DC Thomson employee to script The Broons and Oor Wullie. He has the tattoos to prove it.
Tom Morton
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