Malcolm Douglas
Malcolm Douglas (8 October 1954 - 22 March 2009) was an illustrator
and an avid fan of folk music. He died aged 54 in March 2009.
Malcolm Douglas, who has died from cancer aged 54, had many talents, but
two in particular brought him to national prominence. He had a
compendious knowledge and understanding of traditional folk song
(mainly, but not exclusively, English folk song), and he was a renowned
illustrator and comic artist. He fell into these contrasting fields by
accident, but he treated them with meticulous attention to detail and a
professionalism that belied his lack of formal training.
He
became an illustrator after volunteering to illustrate a student union
newspaper at Sheffield University, and found that people were prepared
to pay him to do what had hitherto been a hobby. His illustrations
featured in a wide range of comics, of which the best known was Oink; he
was also the illustrator of the footballing devilkin Fred the Red, for
five years delighting both young and old readers of Manchester United
match programmes.
For the English Folk Dance and Song Society
(EFDSS) he revised the evergreen song collection The Penguin Book of
English Folk Songs, originally edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and AL
Lloyd in 1959. In his new edition, published in 2003 as Classic English
Folk Songs, he corrected previous errors and brought to the book a
wealth of additional detail. He did the same well-researched and
comprehensive review of another of the EFDSS's most successful
publications, Marrow Bones (2007), a collection of folk songs from
Dorset and Hampshire, originally edited by Frank Purslow. He was working
on a third, The Wanton Seed, when he succumbed to illness. He was also
well-known among folk-music enthusiasts for his contributions to the
online forum The Mudcat Café, where he had posted almost 9,000 detailed
answers to questions about the most obscure aspects of folk song and
music.
Malcolm was born and brought up in south London, and after
attending Trinity School of John Whitgift in Croydon, he went to
Sheffield University to study French and English and decided to stay on
in the city, which he regarded as his home town.
He was committed
to the principle of the people's ownership of their cultural heritage
and was involved in many grassroots initiatives, even expressing concern
about what he saw as the over-professionalisation of the folk arts. He
was co-host at the Red Deer folk club in Sheffield for a decade and was
active in regional organisations such as the South Riding Folk Network
(SRFN) and Yorkshire Folk Arts, maintaining websites for both
organisations, editing the SRFN magazine and designing the South
Yorkshire folk magazine Stirrings.
Malcolm was also a performer,
playing the fiddle, mandolin and cittern with various concert and dance
bands, and was a familiar figure at music sessions in and around
Sheffield.
He is survived by his mother, Sylph, and his brother,
Ian.
Comics work includes:
Ham Dare, Pig of the Future
(with Lew Stringer, in Oink!)
The Street-Hogs! (with writer Mark
Rodgers, in Oink!)
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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