Christmas 2018 was the last year Mum had the chance to make one of her famous Christmas cards, a tradition that stretched back to just before she and Dad got married. Here, a year before that momentous event, is her hand made card from 1957. And now, if you'll permit me the indulgence, there now follows a gallery of almost every card she and Dad made and sent over the subsequent 60 years.
Mum and Dad, Corral and Ian Sutherland, were married in Montrose in August 1958 and moved into their first together in Aberdeen, as commemorated in this, their first joint Christmas card.
1960: Corral and Ian move into their first house, on Burnieboozle Crescent Aberdeen. Get them, they even have a phone number.
1961: And now they have their first child, baby Kev born in October.
1962: Corral and Ian and toddler Kev. It was, by the way, because of Mum's job as a graphic designer that they were able to produce cards of this quality in the days long before photocopiers and home printers. These cards were produced by letterpress printing, requiring a metal plate to be made.
1963: Kev gets the card to himself. Mum was always an expert draughtswoman, her line drawings and paintings being her stock in trade and always of the highest quality. This was a good example of her showing the quality of her drawing on the Christmas card itself.
1964: Baby Jude is born.
1965: Jude and Kev in another immaculate line drawing, the metal plate for which survived for many years at the family home, and may well still be in a storage box somewhere.
1966: The whole family share the card for the first time.
1967: The Lyre Bird was an image Mum had used on a card back in 1957, which she revived for 1967. Print and painted versions of the image survive from her days at Edinburgh College Of Art.
1968: The Sutherland family moved into their new home, at Windmill Gardens in Kibworth, Leicestershire, where they would remain for the next fifty years. It was finally sold in December 2019.
1969: From the card and letterpress of the previous years, this is a card printed on flimsy paper and hand coloured. Quite why, history doesn't record. The family archive also lacks any cards for 1970 or 1971 for similarly unknown reasons.
1972: In a return to quality printing, we have the first of the family's pastiches of popular culture. Though it's not directly referenced, this is the Sutherlands as The Partridge Family (after a fashion, the flowery shirts being the things we genuinely wore at the time, and the double bass being a pure flight of fancy on Dad's part).
1973: This was the year we acquired a cat, and I got my first real guitar. Jude clearly got ballet shoes that year, too. The cat was called, rather innocently, Pussy.
1975: The Bay City Sutherlands marks Kev's first attempt at drawing the card, with help on the figure drawing by Mum.
1976: Satire seems to be the order of the day, with reference to inflation and mortgages.
1977: Again Kev, wearing a topical Happy Days t shirt, helps draw the family card. This time the rest of the family are safely rendered by Mum's more assured hand.
1978: Kev draws the entire card, in a final bout of artistic showing off (the following year he would go on to start producing his own cards, independent of the family). The L-plate celebrates the fact Kev was old enough to take driving lessons. For the record, he didn't pass his test until three years later.
1979: Mum's back in charge of drawing the card and takes us back to a classic style, with Kev safely away at art college and unable to interfere.
1980: The start of the Empty Nest cards. Jude goes off on a school exchange trip, Dad has started working for a French company, hence the international travel, and Kev begins a degree down in Exeter. Mum is busier than ever as a freelance artist.
1981: A subtly smuggled-in Round Robin message makes itself part of this year's card.
1982: Lacking a hi-res version at the moment, this card goes full Empty Nest with Jude away at Durham University, Kev still in Exeter, Dad spending an increasing amount of time on the golf course, and Mum caricaturing at a piano bar. Rather cruelly, this card commemorates the big story of the year, when Dad got hit on the head by a golf ball and hospitalised. He couldn't speak for a while, and took a long time to recover his talking and piano playing skills, quite a worry for a piano-playing fast-talking salesman.
1983: Again only in low resolution, 1983 is clearly the year of cocktails. It's also Mum and Dad's 25th Anniversary.
1984: For the first time the kids are left off the Christmas card. Cause for celebration indeed.
1985: In a novel experiment, Mum and Dad send a packet of seeds with every card, so that the recipients can have a lasting memory that'll grow all year round.
1986: Breaking the tradition of their legendary Hogmanay party, which has taken place every year at Windmill Gardens, Mum & Dad spend the New Year period visiting relatives in Canada and the USA.
1987: Dad has, for many years, been a salesman working in the ever-changing world of computers. When he joined NCR in the 1950s they sold cash registers, as their name suggested. Now thirty years later, working for a company in Bedfordshire (possibly Rhone Poulenc), he is in charge of selling these new fangled floppy discs. Can't see them catching on.
1988: Weaning himself gently into a kind of retirement, Dad has bought his first Clavinova electric piano and is playing gigs in pubs and clubs. That Clavinova would, 15 years later, be given (on a permanent loan basis) to Miranda Hart. Wonder if she still has it? Mum's graphic design business is clearly thriving.
1989: The sun sets on another decade as our happy couple live up to their image as party animals and entertainers.
1990: And sometimes you get round to the Christmas card at the last minute.
1991: A musical card, commemorating the sing songs that were always a part of Sutherland parties, with Dad now able to accompany on a piano wherever he went.
1992: A lovely strong design, doing away with the family's faces for the first time in many years. By now Mum was drawing and Dad was playing the piano pretty much full time.
1994: It's the height of Britpop, so Mum and Dad were clearly too busy having it large to spend too long on the card.
1995: Reviving the idea of giving seeds with the card, this year's card was all flower no faces.
1996: Mum and Dad are pensioners already, how did that happen so fast. Mum is dividing her time between tap dancing, golfing, drawing, and watching Oprah. Dad's just enjoying the benefits of old age.
1997: Still in touch with popular culture, this Teletubbies classic is a return to the style of the family's 1970s cards. The card folded out to reveal the message inside.
1998: Celebrating their 40th Wedding Anniversary, their 40th Christmas card.
1999: Another topical gem, this time with Mum & Dad on the Millennium Eye.
2002: At this point I have a gap in my archive, I don't know if anyone out there has the 2000 and 01 cards? This is a rather spiffing design by Mum, celebrating their regular trips to Florida.
2003: With the birth of their first grandchild, Shona, Christmas cards are a family affair again, and now in glorious full colour, thanks to the marvel of the Mac and home printing.
2004: Toddler Shona in a watercolour by Mum of the back garden and the view to the windmill (last glimpsed on the card back in 1968).
2005: Hitting their satirical stride, Mum and Dad are the Christmas card stars of Strictly.
2006: Mum and Dad are the stars of Countdown. I have a gap in my archive for 2007 and 2008.
2009: Mum and Dad star in the X Factor. And this, sadly, was to be the last outing of the celebrity Sutherland double act on their Christmas cards, as Dad died at the beginning of December 2010, making that year's card a harder thing to do. Mum did however continue with the cards, moving on to themed designs.
2013: Mum begins a sequence of cards, doing the 12 Days Of Christmas. 2013 was the Partridge In A Pear Tree. 2014 and 2015 were Turtle Doves and French Hens (which I can't find in the archive at the moment), bringing us to...
2018: The 12 Days Of Christmas. In August 2018 Mum moved into the care home where she would see out her days, and she was determined to complete this final card. So she drew the remaining Days images, and I coloured and assembled them for her. The large leaf came from her 2015 Turtle Doves painting, making it all as much of her own work as was possible.
So there we have it. The best part of 60 years of cards, devised by Corral and Ian and drawn by Corral Sutherland. I hope everyone else has cards as good as this, and that this tradition lives on.
Merry Christmas every one, and a Happy New Year when it comes.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here.
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