20 Facts About Alfred Bestall

Alfred Bestall won a scholarship to the Birmingham Central School of Art and later attended the LCC Central School of Arts and Crafts in Camden.

Alfred Bestall served in World War I as an MT driver in the British Army in Flanders, where he transported troops, ammunition and stores in a range of vehicles including converted double-decker London B-Type buses, often under enemy fire.

Alfred Bestall began doing paintings for The Amalgamated Press and did illustrations for Punch and Tatler, as well as for over 50 books.

In 1935, Alfred Bestall was selected to take over the Daily Express's Rupert Bear stories from Mary Tourtel.

Alfred Bestall said that he had known "nothing of the subject so I bought the Daily Express, looked at Mary Tourtel's work and drew three specimens keeping to her simplicity of line".

Alfred Bestall did not sign his Rupert strips for the first 12 years out of respect to Tourtel.

Alfred Bestall had only five weeks to plan his first Rupert story and drawings.

Alfred Bestall improved the stories and plots of Rupert, but more importantly, he created the most beautifully crafted illustrations in the Rupert annuals.

Alfred Bestall had first visited Beddgelert whilst holidaying with his parents at Trefriw in the Conwy valley in 1912 and 1913, where their holiday home was called 'Penlan'.

Alfred Bestall was often asked where Rupert's home village of Nutwood was supposed to be located, and told his first biographer George Perry that 'it is an amalgam of the scenery in the Weald, the wooded plateau so loved by the poet Hilaire Belloc that lies in Kent and Sussex between the North and South Downs, and of the Severn Valley around Hereford, with the more rugged terrain required in the stories reminiscent of the mountains of Snowdonia.

The Daily Express Children's Editor had a single instruction for Alfred Bestall which was "no evil characters, fairies or magic".

Alfred Bestall produced his last Rupert story on 22 July 1965.

Alfred Bestall retired from the Daily Express in July 1965 but continued creating covers and endpapers for the annuals until 1973.

Goodchild designed the cottage that in 1956 Alfred Bestall bought at the foot of Mynydd Sygun, in Beddgelert, which he subsequently named 'Penlan'.

Alfred Bestall kept all his early artwork in the loft of Penlan and told his goddaughter to have a bonfire of his work after his death.

Alfred Bestall had featured origami in almost every Rupert Annual from 1946 onwards and thus was partially responsible for the growth of interest in origami in the UK.

Alfred Bestall was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1985 Birthday Honours but was unable to receive the award in person because he had bone cancer.

Alfred Bestall lived in Beaconsfield House, 44 Ewell Road, Surbiton, from 1966 to 1977.

Alfred Bestall died on 15 January 1986, aged 93, at Wern Manor Nursing Home in Porthmadog, Wales.

Alfred Bestall is buried in plot 100 of Brookwood Cemetery.