Grange Calveley (6 May 1943 – 22 August 2021) was a British artist and writer. He was best known as the creator of the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
's
animated television series
An animated series, or a cartoon series, is a set of Animation, animated films with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series ...
''
Roobarb
''Roobarb'' (also known as ''Roobarb and Custard'') is an animated children's television series, created by Grange Calveley and originally shown on BBC1 just before the evening news. Each cartoon of the original series, written by Calveley and d ...
Channel FIVE
5 (formerly known as Channel 5 and Five) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Param ...
and directed by
Jason Tammemagi
Jason Tammemagi is the creator, writer and director of preschool show, '' Fluffy Gardens''. He also directed '' Roobarb & Custard Too'', '' Planet Cosmo'', and Irish animated drama, '' Ballybraddan''.
Jason was Creative Director of Geronimo Produc ...
.
Early life
Calveley was born on 6 May 1943 in Hale,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...
. His father was with the
Scots Guards
The Scots Guards (SG) is one of the five Foot guards#United Kingdom, Foot Guards regiments of the British Army. Its origins are as the personal bodyguard of King Charles I of England and Scotland. Its lineage can be traced back to 1642 in the Ki ...
and was killed at
Arezzo
Arezzo ( , ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in Italy and the capital of the Province of Arezzo, province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of Above mean sea level, above sea level. As of 2 ...
in 1944.
Grange attended Bradbury Central school on Queens Road, Hale. After leaving Bradbury at age 15 he joined Osborne Peacock, a Manchester advertising agency and later attended art college on day release.
After Art College, Calveley worked for a number of advertising agencies in London. It was while at Masius that he met his wife Hanny, a
copywriter
Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. Copywriting is aimed at selling products or services. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to incre ...
.
Roobarb
The ''Roobarb'' cartoon character is loosely based on Calveley's own dog, a Welsh
Border Collie
The Border Collie is a British list of dog breeds, breed of herding dog of the collie type of medium size. It originates in the region of the Anglo-Scottish border, and descends from the traditional Sheep dog, sheepdogs once found all over the ...
. Custard was drawn after the huge cat who lived next door.
The ''Roobarb'' (1974)
television series
A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...
was commissioned by the BBC, who sold the series to more than 40 countries around the world. In his book, ''Roobarb: An Illuminated Biogwoofy'', Calveley describes how the real dog would leap up into the fork of a tree and how the dog's antics became part of the cartoon's opening title. ''Roobarb'' was directed by
Bob Godfrey
Roland Frederick Godfrey MBE (27 May 1921 – 21 February 2013),John Hawksworth and the stories were narrated by
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers (14 January 1934 – 17 February 2013) was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in '' Marriage Lines'' (1961–66), but ...
.
The characteristic bouncy wobbly style known as ''"boiling"'' was used as Calveley and the other animators did not have enough money to use traditional cel methods and used marker pens on paper instead.
Other works
''Roobarb'' was followed in 1977 by ''Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk''. In the late 70s Calveley and his family moved to Australia where he produced further TV series, '' Captain Cookaburra's AustraliHa'' (1983), '' Captain Cookaburra's Road to Discovery'' (1985) and in 2005 a sequel to ''Roobarb'' called ''Roobarb and Custard Too''.
Away from television, Calveley was the author of the series of children's books ''One to Five''.
Calveley died on 22 August 2021 after suffering a stroke 12 days previously.