Accidents and emergencies

My blog usually consists of the weekly sketches for my newspaper cartoon plus occasional sketchbook entries and the odd rumination on life, the universe and stuff. Last week's was a little different due to World Events intervening, so I didn't get round to the newspaper sketches.

As I know from my Twitter follower, this has caused great disappointment for yards around, so here is the delayed blog.

The stories which fell across The Westmorland Gazette cartoon desk were many and varies. However the two which attracted me were one about a proposed Mayor of Cumbria (why?) and increasing waiting times at local hospital A&E.

You can see my sketches below and the final, color cartoon which made it onto the front page.

A-Fracking we will go …

Christmas is upon us so this week’s cartoon for the super, soaraway Westmorland Gazette had to have a festive air. But which story to choose? There were two main candidates:

Hawkshead GP Surgery is under threat of closure. It’s in a rural area, falls below some arbitrary limit for the number of patients and is going to have a support grant withdrawn. It’s also top of an NHS survey into patient satisfaction.

A good story but one I’ve covered before. I had a solitary go at it and you can see the result below. Difficult to see how I could shoehorn Rudolf into that one.

The front page lead was more alluring. Fracking comes to South Lakes. Specifically, Milnthorpe, Levens and Kirkby Lonsdale. Given that the threat of windfarms caused a deafening rustle of Barbour jackets in Kirkby Lonsdale, I can’t see fracking being popular.

I had several punts at this story, including one which I knew wouldn’t get in but which would ensure my steamed editor was paying attention.

I also ran foul of the censors with use of the word ‘fracking’. Some potty-minds in the newsroom thought I was being rude. As if.

Below are the cartoon candidates. Feel free to vote for your favorite by appending a comment (preferably to the blog rather than on the moon or Facebook). Then whoosh to my website to see the editor’s choice in high-definition, 3D technicolor.

The Unkindest Cut (Again)

I am a big fan of the National Health Service in general and the local Trust in particular. Over many years, it has provided a healthy diet of stories for my cartoon in The Westmorland Gazette.

This week it has served up another front page story with news that it is cutting 230 jobs in the coming months, in a bid to reduce its deficit (which was in turn the due to the combined efforts of managers, our glorious government and its predecessor).

A couple of other stories also drifted past the Cartoon Desk. 

The first is that passengers alighting at the railway station known as OXENHOLMETHELAKEDISTRICT are often distraught to discover that the nearest lake is 11 miles away.

The other story is that the recent visit to great Tower Scout Camp by the Duchess of Cambridge has caused a recruitment surge …

You can see all six ideas below. These were subjected to the stern gaze of my steamed editor. 

But which did he pick for the front page?

More to the point, which would you pick? 

Add your comments below and then hobble over to my website to see if morphic resonance has worked its magic.

March

Last Saturday, the Westmorland Gazette and LibDem MP Tim Farron organised a march through Kendal. Not in support of Canada geese but to campaign for a new radiotherapy unit for Westmorland General Hospital.

In my years on the front page of the Gazette, I’ve done innumerable cartoons about the  hospital. 25 years ago the cartoon was campaigning to have the thing built. Now we’re trying to keep bits of it open. And all around us, the LibCon government is happily trying to dismantle the whole NHS.

This march was a big thing and the Gazette pretty much cleared the front page for it in today’s paper. The cartoon got a bit squished as a result but it did make me determined to cover the story.

The Gazette’s editorial team were not so sure. There was considerable debate about which cartoon to use, especially as I was trying to tie two stories together in the one cartoon - one of them from the wider, national news.

You can see the six alternatives below. Which would you have chosen? 

Comment below and then sashay over to my website to peek at the one which graces the front page of this week's newspaper.

Bothered and beleaguered

Last week, the Westmorland Gazette's front page lead was an exciting story about a Morecambe Bay NHS Trust whistleblower who was calling for the head of the Trust to resign.

It is not the sort of story to go away and in the intervening week the colostomy bags have really hit the fan.

The NHS Trust executive in question has refused to resign. A local GP claims that staff are too frightened to speak out. And local MP, Tim Farron, has been swamped with similar complaints about the Trust.

As Private Eye has extensively reported, whistleblowers are not exactly flavour of the month at the NHS. There has even a website set up especially to preserve their anonymity when disclosing information to the press. And given that the local whistleblower in question has identified a specific individual, it’s a fun-packed legal minefield for a newspaper cartoonist.

However, not one to be daunted, here are the sketches I pitched for this week’s front page cartoon. 

Number 4, you’ll notice, isn’t about the NHS; a twinning scheme has been set up to highlight the lack of public toilets in third world areas like Grasmere and Bowness. This was offered as a backup in case the other three attracted too many legal problems.

You can see which cartoon made the front page by buying the Gazette or visiting my website after 3pm today.

A Matter of Trust

Last week I remarked that my newspaper sometimes presents me with a range of stories competing for the front page cartoon. At other times, it’s got to be the front page lead. 

This week’s Westmorland Gazette has a splendid lead story: A consultant who works for the Morecambe Bay Hospitals Trust has condemned the Trust’s governing body, saying that none of the staff have any confidence in them. The Trust is more interested in ticking boxes and hitting government-set targets than actually looking after patients.

Damning stuff, made all the more exciting by the fact that the consultant wants to remain anonymous - NHS Trusts don’t have a good record for their treatment of whistle-blowers.

Usually I get three hours to work on the cartoon, from initially reading the stories to finished artwork, scanned and emailed to the sub-editors in Blackburn. Yesterday that was down to two hours - the story was still being written and - I imagine - was being slowed down by having to be run past the Newsquest lawyers.

Below you can see the four ideas I pitched to the editor. The chosen cartoon is, even now, on the front of The Westmorland Gazette … or pop over to my website on Friday, where you will be able to see it in colour.