Emile Mercier - a cartoonist of note.

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I grew up with Emile Mercier.

When I was a child, my father bought two daily newspapers - the Sydney Morning Herald and, in the afternoon, The Sun.

Emile Mercier's work appeared in every edition of The Sun from 1949 until he retired in the late 1960s (see Wikipedia article - link above). I used to buy The Sun myself when living and working in Sydney.

It was a sad say when he retired - a little like the sadness felt when Charles M. Schulz drew his last 'Peanuts' strip in 2000.

Mercier's style was unique; for instance, in many of his cartoons there were springs under the floorboards (example above) or even under footpaths.

He also drew wonderfully-scraggy cats and scruffy dogs and most of his works which featured race-horses had at least one of them named "Gravy Bones".

His inventive mind also came up with alliterative names for businesses and products.

The Wikipedia article to which I've given a link has good information about Emile Mercier. There are many other sources on the internet, too.

I just wanted to pop up a few of his pieces from the 1957 booklet entitled "Follow That Wardrobe!",  bought quite a few years ago and which I unearthed yesterday when sorting through some books.

You will find the occasional Mercier booklet on eBay. They are not cheap, having become sought after by collectors. For example, right at this moment there is one available for $40 and, from another seller, eight first-editions going as a job-lot for $260.

So enjoy the following examples, straight from 1950s Australia...............

The two pieces below certainly sum-up Mercier's view of road workers!

Those who are familiar with lawn bowls will get the gist of the comment below.

Nothing changes in politics, does it?!

When this cartoon was published (1957), Australia's television industry was only one year old. Politicians were very quick to take advantage of the new medium.

Every oil company had their own additives, each touted to provide some sort of improvement or benefit to the engine.

You might recognise the legitimate brands in the fictional names which Mercier has used below. Two of them have long gone from the roadsides of Australia.

Mercier's love of "gravy" and "shrdlu" come to the fore in the public bar and the horse stables.

That's probably "Gravy Bones" who ran last.......a very long last!

I'll round out this gallery with Emile Mercier showing that even Santa could get a "bluey" for illegally parking his sleigh.

 

The new crossing of the Clarence River pushes ahead.

 

Viewed from the southern riverbank, with the original bridge at left.

Although the construction site is about 9 kms (as the crow flies) up-river from our home, for the past several weeks we have been hearing muted "thuds" and feeling faint vibrations through the ground as enormous steel tubes are pounded through a thousand years of river silt and down to bedrock, some 50 to 70 metres below the surface of the water.

The site to which I refer is that for the new bridge which will carry the dual-carriageway Pacific Highway upgrade over the Clarence (which is approximately 620 metres wide at this location); add the approaches and the structure will be over 1500 metres in length.

Work is now well underway and yesterday I visited the site, parked my car on the southern (Yamba) side of the river and walked along the footpath on the existing bridge to the northern side, where the pilings for the northern approach are underway.

Looking south towards the Yamba/Maclean interchange.

At the southern end, work currently in progress centres on what will be the interchange, on-ramps & off-ramps, for traffic to and from Yamba and Maclean. Pile-driving at this end has not commenced.

Looking north and the piling work for the approach.

Whilst talking with two members of the construction team I was amazed to learn that these steel tubes have to be driven through such a deep layer of river silt before reaching bedrock but, as one of the gentlemen said, the location (seen above) was actually the bed of the river itself some thousands of years ago.

That red device with the tube projecting from it is the pile-driver.

As the tubes get driven into the ground, sections are added by welding them to the top until finally the tubes are of the correct length to just leave a small portion projecting, as in the photo below, which shows the first set of steel tubes - just off the north riverbank - completed and ready for the next stage in the construction of a pylon.

Tubes ready to become the base for one pylon.

The road-level on the new bridge will be about as high as those concrete blocks in the towers.

The original bridge (seen above and opened in 1966) will continue to be maintained by the State government (RMS) even though it will, in reality, become part of the local road system rather than part of the Pacific Highway once the new bridge is completed.
Northbound local traffic - i.e., that coming from Yamba & Maclean - will use this bridge and the original highway until joining the new carriageway near the Iluka turnoff, some 9 kms north of Harwood.

I met and chatted with a couple of the workmen who are removing rust, repainting and generally sprucing up the old girl.

No doubt it will be standing for another 50 years.