Captain Pugwash

At John Ryan’s wedding in 1950, he was introduced by a friend to Marcus Morris, who was launching Eagle, and asked the artist to create a strip for it.

It ran for the first nineteen issues of Eagle, but was dropped due to being considered too childish, and John replaced it with Harris Tweed.

The first Captain Pugwash picture book, subtitled A Pirate Story and featuring Tom’s debut, was rejected by twelve publishers until The Bodley Head picked it up in 1957.

Further short films would be produced and broadcast until 1966, and in 1960 a popular and regularly released Radio Times strip was launched to promote the series, running until 1965.

In 1974 a new colour series was commissioned, with Peter Hawkins reprising his roles, and wider-reaching than its sporadically produced predecessor.

Four of its 30 episodes were remakes of black-and-white shorts.