EXTRACTS: The Art of Commando (illustrators special) © 2019 The Book Palace (144 PAGES in Full edition)

59 went out to my hut. I had my materials and a good light and heater and a bottle of whisky with two glasses in case I had visitors and they came in and had a wee dram and they enjoyed the benefits thereon. I sat out in my hut for some years. One day I went out, it was late November and I took the cap of my ink bottle and I dipped my pen in and I hit the bottom of the bottle and I thought, “No I can’t have hit the bottom of the bottle”, because I’d just replaced the bottle three days back. It was so cold out there that my ink had frozen. I bent a perfectly good Joseph Gillatt 303 nib. I got all my materials from the office (Thomson’s) so it didn’t matter, but it was so cold out there. It was then that I said to Pam, “I’ve got to come into the house, or I’ll freeze to death, it’s so cold”. So we put an extension on the house and then one of the bedrooms used by my daughter Gillian, who’s now 35, she vacated that and went into our bedroom. And we moved into this lovely big bedroom that we built on the