Biography of John Ryan
Creator of Captain Pugwash

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John Christopher Gerald Ryan was born in 1921 in Edinburgh and was the son of Sir Andrew Ryan, a British diplomat. His lifelong fascination with pirates began when his family moved to Morocco while he was a young boy. From his bedroom window in the exotic fishing port of Rabat he scanned the rolling seas to catch a glimpse of real pirate ships.

John’s compulsion to draw started in his formative years, following a small discrepancy while studying at Ampleforth College, a Catholic boarding school in Yorkshire. John was given the choice between a beating and drawing a cartoon for the school newspaper; he chose the latter. John was than encouraged to draw by father Sylvester an ex-Fleet Street cartoonist. After he had co-founded a scurrilous 'alternative' magazine at school, World War 2 intervened and the army sent John to fight in the jungles of Burma. Between battles he quite often got into trouble for drawing wicked caricatures of his superior officers.

In 1950 John married fellow artist Priscilla, whom he had met at art class at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Priscilla found herself dealing with increasing numbers of offspring, pets and lodgers. As an art master at Harrow School John found his salary was not quite enough, so he sat down, doodled and sketched, and on the page before him appeared a chubby pirate... Captain Horatio Pugwash was born!

The Black Pig's maiden voyage was in a strip cartoon. In April 1950 the Captain appeared in the first issue of the legendary 'Eagle' magazine. But the childish and greedy pirate soon mutinied and started demanding a book all to himself. So John created his first picture book for children, "Captain Pugwash, A Pirate Story" using pen and paint in a small spiral-bound sketchbook. A dozen publishers rejected it before The Bodley Head said 'yes!' in 1956. Since then, 20 more Pugwash books have been published and translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Danish and Japanese. During the 1950’s John also created Harris Tweed, for ‘Eagle’ and Lattice Leefe, The Greenest Girl in School for Girl Magazine.

In the 1960’s he started doing a weekly cartoon for the Catholic Herald featuring Cardinal Grotti of the Vatican. Coming from a long Catholic background, John himself was a devout and traditional Catholic. In his cartoons John managed to ‘gently poke fun at the ecclesiastical bigwigs but never ridicule them.’ Later in his career, predominantly in the nineties, John created a number of storybooks for young children based on the bible. These included Mabel and the Tower of Babel, Jonah, A Whale of a Tale, The Very Hungry Lions and A Bad Year for Dragons: the Legend of Saint George. 

Owen Reed of Children's BBC got to hear about the Captain. In John's spiral-bound sketchbook he spotted the beginnings of an animated character for children's television. One look at the drawing where Pugwash, forced by Cut-Throat Jake to walk the plank, falls with a gigantic splash into the sea convinced him that here was a motion picture. The BBC commissioned an animated series and since then 86 episodes have been made.

But HOW was Pugwash to migrate from the flat page into a moving image on television? After much trial and error, John perfected his own unique 2-D animation method. First, he cut out and painted flat cardboard figures of the pirates and all the other characters. Then John 'jointed' them intricately with hidden brass paperclips. Then he added scenic backgrounds in which the figures could move. It took about 50 backgrounds to make one 5-minute episode. Unseen by the film camera, cardboard levers were manipulated by hand, to animate the characters and - hey presto! Jake's mouth roared, Pugwash's legs ran, the ship's wheel revolved, and Tom the Cabin Boy's eye winked at us while he rowed away. The small team who animated the Pugwash cartoons included Priscilla, Ryan’s wife, operating the mouth levers, Sara Cole the eyes, Ryan the arms, Hazel Martingell controlling the tape and logging the film and Bob Bura and John Hardwick lighting and filming the sequence.

Those who saw the early black and white episodes will never forget their jaunty (some might say jerky) movements. Moving those levers smoothly was an art in itself: Priscilla, John and their studio assistants quickly became adept. The early episodes were actually filmed and recorded LIVE without editing, so there was no chance for re-do's. All the characters were voiced by one man - the incredible Peter Hawkins, an actor whose performance was so hilarious that he had to be hidden behind a screen during recording to prevent the film crew and animators from having hysterics. Pugwash productions were a real family affair: incidental sound-effects were often created by the Ryan children.

Perhaps the most memorable aspect of Pugwash on television was the theme tune - a piece of music instantly recognisable to millions today. It is a hornpipe played by the late Tommy Edmondson of Northumberland on his piano accordion.

In the Seventies, Pugwash splashed excitedly onto television screens in full colour, and more uproarious Pugwash books followed. Other characters created by John appeared on BBC television in 'Mary, Mungo and Midge', made for the BBC in 1969 which took as its subject a latch-key kid who lived in a tower block with her dog and mouse. Narrated by the news reader Richard Baker and Ryan’s daughter Isabel, the series manage to capture the spirit of the age by exploring the new and ‘exciting’ world of high-rise accommodation. In 1972 The Adventures of Sir Prancelot, featuring an inventive medieval crusader, were broadcasted by the BBC. Sir Prancelot’s enemy Count Otto The Blot was said to be modelled on Otto Herschan, the managing director of the Catholic Herald. For Yorkshire television in 1981 John collaborated with Anne Wood, who later would go on to create the Teletubbies, Together they created The Ark Stories, featuring Jannet and Jaffet, the children of the Ark.

Audio tapes of the Pugwash books and videos of the television episodes were launched in the Eighties.

John hit the road as a 'talking artist'. In schools, libraries and book fairs he gave illustrated talks. While children sat entranced, John drew colourful pictures on flip charts, explaining how the books were written and the films were made. John and Priscilla moved from London to the ancient port of Rye, a town steeped in the history of seafaring. The Rye Players asked John to design and paint scenery for their Christmas pantomimes.

In 1998 Captain Pugwash was recreated for television by John Cary Studios in lots of exciting new adventures. More swashbuckling characters were brought to life by vivid computer animation with sumptuous music. A new generation of children grew to love not just the Captain but also Jonah, Cut-Throat Jake's Mum and Donna Bonanza!

In the words of John Ryan: "I'm a lucky man, because I've managed to earn a living by doing what I love: drawing and painting every day! And I've been supported by my wonderful wife, children and grandchildren, who've helped keep Pugwash a float, sailing the high seas for 57 years! No matter how many other characters I create, I always seem to come back to the Captain. Pugwash has two qualities which I believe are present in all of us to some degree: Cowardice and Greed. It is the conflict between these opposing emotions which make the stories work. It may be that the Captain is popular because we all have something in common with him.  What would YOU do if you saw a delicious toffee on the nose of a crocodile?"

In the summer of 2007 Captain Pugwash was adapted for the stage and was a roaring success.

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