Hart 100

 Born 100 years ago today was the artist and broadcaster Tony Hart. When he died back in 2009, I wrote a bit about him on this blog – 
'A talented, inventive and exceptionally deft artist, capable of working fast on a large or small scale, he presented children's art programmes that were genuinely inspiring. Everything was pitched at exactly the right level – these were projects you could attempt and actually succeed with – and of course there was the added spur of The Gallery, in which the best of the pictures sent in by viewers were displayed. But what made it all so compelling and heartening was that Tony was so transparently a nice and decent man. Sadly, in his later years, he suffered the cruellest blow an artist can face – the loss of the use of his hands – but he had already done more in inspiring generations of children to get painting and drawing than anyone ever did before of ever will in the future. As with the great Postgate [Oliver Postgate had died in the same year], we shall not see his like again.
Footnote: Some years ago, I was on an Italian bus, coming down into Positano, and as we reached the edge of town, there he was, striding along the pavement – Tony Hart. I was quite ridiculously cheered by the sight of him – but I suspect he had that effect on everybody, and that was part of his success. He spread a lot of happiness.'
   Bizarrely, a surge of tributes to Hart erupted on social media six years later, in 2015, when someone put up a newspaper report of his death on Facebook, having not noticed the dateline on the piece, and it was then republished on Twitter.  Well, Hart was worthy of all the tributes going, so fair enough.