| Roy's Not Bad for An Old ... Uh ... Boy By Paul Wilson -- The Hamilton Spectator October 16, 2006 |
Everybody needs a work routine. Here's the Roy Carless method.
He begins the day with a brisk walk to the toilet. That's it for exercise. Then he pulls on his jacket
and Australian hat and heads out to the porch of his house on Bold Street, home for 53 years.
Out there, he smokes 10 Century Sam cigars and reads five newspapers -- this one, the New York
Times, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the National Post. He's out on that porch for six
hours a day.
But by the time the smoking and the reading are done, he has an idea. He heads inside, sits at the
head of the dining room table, reaches for just the right pen and draws himself a cartoon.
Maybe it's about nukes, or Mounties, or Mr. Harper. Whatever, it is Roy's charge of the day.
He's 86. And when people ask how he's doing, he always gives them the same six-word answer.
Look for it now on the cover of a new book called The Carless Cartoon Collection: Not Bad For An
Old Bastard.
The OB will be signing copies and telling stories this Sunday, Oct. 22, from 2 to 5 at the Workers
Arts & Heritage Centre on Stuart Street. It's free and everyone is welcome.
Roy may need to step out at some point for a smoke. He has been puffing since he was 14, since
he was stealing Buckinghams from his dad.
Father was police chief for Swansea, the High Park area of Toronto. He was a boxer, a pitcher, a
speedskater.
Roy was none of those things. No athlete, no student, no obedient son. "I always hated authority. I
hated discipline."
He quit school in Grade 10, worked for General Electric in Toronto, came to Hamilton in 1948 and
got a job at the big Westinghouse appliance plant on Longwood Road.
When the boss wasn't looking, he'd sketch out some workplace gripe.
A great flock of pigeons had found their way into the old plant. There was guano everywhere and
management wasn't doing anything about it. Roy posted a sketch on the board on Valentine's Day,
with pigeons the size of Lancaster bombers dropping heart-shaped missiles on the men below.
A great roar spread across the factory floor. Management brought in a sharpshooter the next day
and the pigeons were gone.
Roy was a chief steward through his decades there. That sharpened his sense of labour humour
and he eventually provided art for labour publications across the continent. A million steelworkers
saw the Carless take on life in their monthly magazine. His work is in the Smithsonian in
Washington and the National Archives in Ottawa.
There was nearly no money in his cartoons. Roy did it for the glee of skewering the bosses and the
politicos.
In 1987, Roy hit bad times. Daughter Cindy died of leukemia at 31. "You never get over it," he says.
And one month later, he was in a car accident. He lost one eye and the other was laced with glass
fragments. He lost sensation on one side of his head.
"I tried to draw again, but it was pathetic. Even trying to think of an idea was hard." So in June of
1990, he quit.
Wife Audrey and son Marc pushed him to pick up a pen again. And during the blackout in the
summer of 2003, by the light of a candle at 3 a.m., the mood struck. He has been cartooning and
smoking and reading papers ever since.
A couple of years ago, he gave the eulogy for old friend and workmate Marshall Schooley. Roy
delivered a ripsnorter. Afterwards, the friend's son Kerry, local publisher and writer, asked Roy
about putting a collection together.
So by all means, go down to Roy's big book launch. Ask him some questions. He'll tell you the truth.
Here's one, Roy. What was it like working on that appliance factory floor for 34 years?
"I was the worst assembler they ever had," he says. "I hated every minute of it. Without the
drawing, I wouldn't have survived."
He begins the day with a brisk walk to the toilet. That's it for exercise. Then he pulls on his jacket
and Australian hat and heads out to the porch of his house on Bold Street, home for 53 years.
Out there, he smokes 10 Century Sam cigars and reads five newspapers -- this one, the New York
Times, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the National Post. He's out on that porch for six
hours a day.
But by the time the smoking and the reading are done, he has an idea. He heads inside, sits at the
head of the dining room table, reaches for just the right pen and draws himself a cartoon.
Maybe it's about nukes, or Mounties, or Mr. Harper. Whatever, it is Roy's charge of the day.
He's 86. And when people ask how he's doing, he always gives them the same six-word answer.
Look for it now on the cover of a new book called The Carless Cartoon Collection: Not Bad For An
Old Bastard.
The OB will be signing copies and telling stories this Sunday, Oct. 22, from 2 to 5 at the Workers
Arts & Heritage Centre on Stuart Street. It's free and everyone is welcome.
Roy may need to step out at some point for a smoke. He has been puffing since he was 14, since
he was stealing Buckinghams from his dad.
Father was police chief for Swansea, the High Park area of Toronto. He was a boxer, a pitcher, a
speedskater.
Roy was none of those things. No athlete, no student, no obedient son. "I always hated authority. I
hated discipline."
He quit school in Grade 10, worked for General Electric in Toronto, came to Hamilton in 1948 and
got a job at the big Westinghouse appliance plant on Longwood Road.
When the boss wasn't looking, he'd sketch out some workplace gripe.
A great flock of pigeons had found their way into the old plant. There was guano everywhere and
management wasn't doing anything about it. Roy posted a sketch on the board on Valentine's Day,
with pigeons the size of Lancaster bombers dropping heart-shaped missiles on the men below.
A great roar spread across the factory floor. Management brought in a sharpshooter the next day
and the pigeons were gone.
Roy was a chief steward through his decades there. That sharpened his sense of labour humour
and he eventually provided art for labour publications across the continent. A million steelworkers
saw the Carless take on life in their monthly magazine. His work is in the Smithsonian in
Washington and the National Archives in Ottawa.
There was nearly no money in his cartoons. Roy did it for the glee of skewering the bosses and the
politicos.
In 1987, Roy hit bad times. Daughter Cindy died of leukemia at 31. "You never get over it," he says.
And one month later, he was in a car accident. He lost one eye and the other was laced with glass
fragments. He lost sensation on one side of his head.
"I tried to draw again, but it was pathetic. Even trying to think of an idea was hard." So in June of
1990, he quit.
Wife Audrey and son Marc pushed him to pick up a pen again. And during the blackout in the
summer of 2003, by the light of a candle at 3 a.m., the mood struck. He has been cartooning and
smoking and reading papers ever since.
A couple of years ago, he gave the eulogy for old friend and workmate Marshall Schooley. Roy
delivered a ripsnorter. Afterwards, the friend's son Kerry, local publisher and writer, asked Roy
about putting a collection together.
So by all means, go down to Roy's big book launch. Ask him some questions. He'll tell you the truth.
Here's one, Roy. What was it like working on that appliance factory floor for 34 years?
"I was the worst assembler they ever had," he says. "I hated every minute of it. Without the
drawing, I wouldn't have survived."
