Ralph Ayres

Ralph Ayres, one of the key figures of British animation in the post-war era. He was born in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England on the 28th November 1914. He learned to draw at the Junior Technical College but was self-taught as an amateur artist. He was apprenticed to a local firm Emanuel Spence as a plumber, after which he went south for work. After the 2nd World War he joined Walt Disney's former director David Hand at Gaumont British Animation in Cookham on Thames,a part of J Arthur Rank organisation and helped in the production of the Animaland series of cartoons. These featured various animal characters such as Ginger Nutt, Corney Crow, Dusty Mole etc. Ralph was director of the second unit of the production team. Ralph was invited to join the Disney Organisation in the USA, but his wife Marjorie Porrit prevailed upon him not to go so he joined John Halas at Halas and Batchelor working on cartoon features and shorts for cinema.He next went freelance producing animation sequences for product advertising in Cinemas, and also for television commercials, working from his studio in Cookham Dean. He continued to do contract work for mainstream cinema especially main title sequences most of which were uncredited. His last major known contribution to old style animation was in Watership Down (1978). Interestingly, some of the David Hand Animaland characters also appeared in comic strip form in the Daily Herald the predecessor to the SUN newspaper.All his working life Ralph Ayres collected bits and pieces of animation artwork from conceptual sketches and individual cells, to masters, negatives, film fragments, reels, etc. These ranged from early bits of Felix the cat, through Disney material, the Cookeen fairy and included copies of the Animaland films. Carefully recorded they were kept in the "Archive room" of his home. He had always hoped these pieces of what he believed was an important artform would be preserved for posterity. Unfortunately when he died on the 4th April 1979 nothing was done to secure the collection for the national film archive. His widow Marjorie, still alive in a nursing home aged 94 years as at February 2004, unfortunately became increasingly disturbed and delusional and control of her affairs were handed over to a local solicitor. When it became necessary to admit Marjorie to a nursing home the house was sold and the contents dispersed including unfortunately the wonderful archive.It is possible that the copies of the David Hand cartoons that were rediscovered a few years back came from this source, but, maybe the Ayres copies and the rest of the archive are out there somewhere in the Maidstone or Cookham area just waiting to be found in some junkshop or second-hand dealer's garage.