Gren Jones (cartoonist)

Grenfell "Gren" Jones MBE (13 June 1934 – 4 January 2007) was one of Wales's best-known and longest-serving newspaper cartoonists.

The son of coal miner Harry Jones, Gren was born in Hengoed in the Rhymney Valley. Aged eight he began drawing caricatures of neighbours and pocket cartoons in the style of Ronald Niebour ("Neb") of the Daily Mail in his hymn book at his local chapel: "Neb was responsible for my first interest in cartoons. I used to go to my grandmother's, who would have the Daily Mail, and I was amazed how the cartoonist could do a different drawing every day."

He then started sending pictures to agents, desperate to earn a living from his obsession with drawing. Later, he scribbled in lay-bys, when he should have been selling tiles and machine tools as a travelling rep. From 1958 to 1963 Gren was employed as an engineering designer.

Gren's first published drawing was a joke cartoon for Spick & Span, and afterwards he sold his first news-related cartoon to the Birmingham Mail, with the help of John Philpin Jones ("Jon") of the News Chronicle: "When I first started I spent a lot of time with Jon, of the Daily Mail. He said draw what you know. And I knew about rugby and the Valleys.".

In 1960 Gren became one of the founder members of the "Knights of the Round Table", a pop group that would later transform itself into the successful satirical group The Barron Knights. For a number of years Jones then worked as a freelance cartoonist before in 1968 getting a staff job on the Western Mail. Gren produced a daily topical cartoon, but is best known for creating the weekly strip "Ponty an' Pop" in the Saturday Sports edition of the Western Mail's sister paper South Wales Echo.

With the words of Jon in his mind, the cartoons depicted South Wales valley life, centred on the village of Aberflyarff in Scrumcap Valley on the River Efflew. Rugby, tightly-packed terraced streets, and local politicians all supplemented popular recurring characters, including: Nigel and Neville the message-bearing sheep; Ponty and Pop; and Bromide Lil, the tattooed barmaid of the Golden Dap.

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