12: POST-WAR CARTOONISTS
286 MR JOHN SNAGGE signed pen and ink with watercolour 7 x 8 1⁄4 inches Illustrated: Punch, 6 April 1955, page 454
Mr John Snagge John Snagge (1904-1996) was a BBC radio presenter and sports commentator, best known for commentating on the OxfordCambridge Boat Race between 1931 and 1980, even continuing into his retirement. The Boat Race on 26 March 1955, won by Cambridge, made the pages of Punch due to a technical glitch in the BBC’s coverage, which led to a loss of sound, forcing the BBC to borrow the voice of John Snagge from BBC radio’s Light Programme.
287 MEN IN BATTLE – THE HOFFNUNG FESTIVAL LT GEN SIR BRIAN HORROCKS – GERARD HOFFNUNG signed inscribed with title below mount pen ink and monochrome watercolour 8 x 9 1⁄2 inches Illustrated: Punch, 28 November 1956
Men in Battle – The Hoffnung Festival Hosted by Lt Gen Sir Brian Horrocks, Commander of the XXX Corps during Operation Market Garden, the documentary, Men in Battle, was first broadcast on the BBC on 13 November 1956. In the programme, Horrocks recounts the scenes he witnessed on the road to Dunkirk. The same evening saw the one-off performance of the ‘Hoffnung Music Festival’ at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Created by cartoonist Gerard Hoffnung and dubbed the ‘Crazy Concert’ by the London newspapers, the light-hearted classical concert sold out its 3000-odd seats within two hours, breaking all Royal Festival Hall records for the time. Such was its popularity, it returned as the Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival in 1958 and then as a memorial performance, the Hoffnung Astronautical Music Festival in 1961, two years after Hoffnung’s death.
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