TOP cartoonists visited Witney’s Wychwood Brewery for their annual trip organised by their trade’s national association.

Sketchbooks in hand, 37 members of the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next year, visited the brewery and competed to create the best goblin-themed artwork.

Winner Noel Ford, 66, whose work has graced Punch, Private Eye and the Daily Star, said: “When I was a boy, I read comics like The Dandy and The Beano.

“I just grew up drawing cartoons, and little imagined I would end up doing it for a living after a few diversions along the way.

“As I grew up, that’s all I ever wanted to be.

Asked how he came up with ideas for his work, Mr Ford said: “I haven’t the faintest idea where the inspiration for a cartoon comes from.

“I think it is just lateral thinking.

“It’s got to be one of the few businesses where you can sit staring out the window and claim to be working. That’s where the process starts.”

His cartoon of a goblin’s trip to a psychiatrist was named the best by judges including Derek Holmes, the editor of the Oxford Mail’s sister paper, the Witney Gazette.

Mr Ford won beer and tokens to spend in the brewery shop.

Former club chairman Graham Fowell, who started as a16-year-old Royal Navy recruit drawing caricatures of senior officers, said the visit on Saturday was an attempt to revive the club ahead of half century celebrations on April Fool’s Day next year.

He said: “The cartoon industry, like any other, has had a bit of a battering over the last 18 months or so.

“We’re struggling a little bit, but trying to hold our own in a diminishing market.

“When newspapers and magazines are looking to save money, cartoonists are the last people in editors’ phonebooks, much to the detriment of publications.”

Among club members visiting the brewery was Cowley cartoonist Clive Goddard, 49, whose work has appeared in publications ranging from Private Eye to Playboy.

Mr Goddard, of Paget Road, said: “You listen to the news and just try to find the funny angle in a story that is inherently unfunny.

“The ones that stick with you years later are usually cartoons that you thought were brilliant at the time, but nobody wanted to buy them.”