Jack Kirkbride was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

, and father to Anne Kirkbride

Anne Kirkbride

Anne Kirkbride is an English actress, best known for her long-running role as Deirdre Barlow in Coronation Street which she has played for thirty-nine years.-Coronation Street:...

, the actress who plays Deirdre Barlow

Deirdre Barlow

Deirdre Anne Barlow is a long-standing fictional character in the UK television ITV Granada soap opera, Coronation Street...

 in the ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 soap opera Coronation Street

Coronation Street

Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...

.

Kirkbride left school at the age of 14 to become an apprentice painter and decorator

Painter and decorator

A house painter and decorator is a tradesman responsible for the painting and decorating of buildings, and is also known as a decorator or house painter...

 but was called up for the Army at age 18, when he started drawing cartoons. He served from 1942 as a transport driver with the Royal Army Service Corps

Royal Army Service Corps

The Royal Army Service Corps was a corps of the British Army. It was responsible for land, coastal and lake transport; air despatch; supply of food, water, fuel, and general domestic stores such as clothing, furniture and stationery ; administration of...

. He fought in the Normandy Campaign

Operation Overlord

Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings...

 in 1944 and was demobbed in 1946. He sold his first cartoon to a national paper in 1953 (a Mothers' Day gag for the Sunday Dispatch

Sunday Dispatch

The Sunday Dispatch was a British newspaper, published between 27 September 1801 and 1961. Until 1928, it was called the Weekly Dispatch.-History:...

), and has since sold to most national papers and magazines, including Punch

Punch (magazine)

Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...

and The Oldie

The Oldie

The Oldie is a monthly magazine launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who for 23 years was the editor of Private Eye. It carries general interest articles, humour and cartoons, and has an eclectic list of contributors, including James Le Fanu, John Sweeney, Thomas Stuttaford, Virginia Ironside,...

. His work also appears in the German press under the name of Jacki.

He became the Oldham Evening Chronicle

Oldham Evening Chronicle

The Oldham Evening Chronicle is a daily newspaper published each weekday evening. It is a local newspaper which serves the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England...

's regular cartoonist in 1958 and went full-time in the 1970s.

He was a founder member of the Cartoonist's Club of Great Britain and his work was published across Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Kirkbride won first prize at the Waddingtons International Cartoon Festival (Margate 1989). His hobbies included listening to classical music, renovating his 18th-century farmhouse on the edge of Saddleworth Moor

Saddleworth Moor

Saddleworth Moor is an area of the South Pennines in northern England. It is a sparsely populated moorland and millstone grit divided between the metropolitan boroughs of Oldham and Kirklees, in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire respectively....

 and playing the pianola.

He died of an aneurysm

Aneurysm

An aneurysm or aneurism is a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. Aneurysms can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart...

 at his home in Oldham

Oldham

Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...

, at the age of 83.