Bert Gallery

His Fatal Beauty, by Bairnsfather

His Fatal Beauty OLD BILL: "My wife married me for love, ye know, Bert" BERT (after prolonged and somewhat pained scrutiny of Bill's face): "I had been wonderin what it was, Bill!" A cartoon in The Bystander by Captain Bruce Bairnsfather featuring his popular characters Old Bill, Bert and Alphie Date: 1918

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Bert Bissell MBE - mountain climber and peace campaigner

Bert Bissell MBE, 1902?1998, was a mountain climber and peace campaigner. Mr Bissell led a pilgrimage from the Dudley Bible Class to the summit of Ben Nevis on VJ Day in 1945. Ther he constructed a Peace Cairn'. In later years the was the centre of some controversy. The expedition from Dudley to Fort William was repeated for some 50 years. Bert's peace messages have been taken to the top of the highest mountains all over the world. One was taken to the moon

© Philip Dunn / Mary Evans Picture Library

Sporting & Dramatic News cover - A Better Ole

Front cover of The Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News featuring photographs of three stars of the stage in 1917. On the left is Miss Vera Clarke, appearing in a principal part at the Victoria Palace theatre in Mischievous Mimi. In the centre is Mr Tom Woottwell, who was playing Bert in The Better Ole at the Oxford Theatre (written by and based on the Bystander cartoons of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather). On the right is Miss Cicely Debenham one of the leading ladies of the Hippodrome, appearing in Zig-Zag.
1917

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans