SNAFFLES: THE LIFE AND WORK OF CHARLIE JOHNSON PAYNE 1884 - 1967. By John Welcome and Rupert Collens.

1987 1st edition. Oblong 4to (248 x 295mm). Pp160. Colour plates throughout. Green boards, gilt titles to front board and spine.

"This superb volume of work by Charlie Johnson Payne, universally known as Snaffles, is both a tribute to the man who was one of the greatest military and sporting artists of his time, and a fascinating chronicle of more than fifty years of sporting, military and naval life. Drawn from many public and private collections, the paintings and drawings in the book illustrate the remarkable range of Snaffles' achievement. ...Born in 1884, the fourth of a bootmaker's eight children, Snaffles developed an early passion for the services. At the age of fifteen he tried to enlist in the Army to fight in the Boer War ...At eighteen he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery, ...and it was the Gunners that were to be his first love for the rest of his life. He joined the Leicester Yeomanry in 1911 but was invalided out before the start of World War I and found himself instead covering the hostilities ...as a war artist for The Graphic. ...He enlisted in the Royal Naval Auxiliary in 1916, serving as a mechanic in the motor launches that helped to rescue crashed sea-planes in the Channel, and in the later stages of the war he was commissioned in the R.N.V.R.'s 'Dazzle' (camouflage) section." Snaffles' varied career is reflected in his work which covers those parts of the army and navy he was most familiar with, fox hunting and English rural life, as well as a great many illustrations depicting the Indian versions of those same subjects. Chapters include: The early years; The missing and struggling years; Making his mark in High Leicestershire; The Great War; The twenties and fame; India; Ireland and red letter days; A second trip to India; The Second World War; the last years.