More usually known by his pen name Mac, Stanley McMurtry was born in Edinburgh. The Family moved to Birmingham when he was eight years old and at 17 he enrolled at the Birmingham School of Art and soon afterwards landed his first job as a trainee shop-fitting designer but as this proved to be too restricting he left and worked as an Ironmonger's assistant until undergoing compulsory military service. On leaving the forces, he became a trainee cartoon film animator, and it was here that he found true happiness and fulfilment doing a job that was to become his life. During breaks in filming, he began to contribute Gag cartoons to magazines and newspapers. He did rather well at this and was soon snapped-up by the Daily Sketch in 1968 to be the Political and Social Cartoonist. In 1971 the Daily Mail took-over the Sketch and Mac became its main cartoonist, during which time he was voted Cartoonist of the Year six times and Political Cartoonist of the Year twice. Additionally, with a colleague, he wrote scripts for the comedians Dave Allen and Tommy Cooper, which is testament to his extraordinary good sense of humour and fun. Mac was awarded the MBE in 2004 for services to the Newspaper industry, was a Castaway on Desert Island Discs in 2008, has been invited to Number 10 by the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher and was voted one of the Men of the Year in 1983. In the meantime, he has been a successful children's author with his acclaimed book The Bungee Venture being made into an animated cartoon by the fabled Hannah & Barbera team in Hollywood. Mac is a widower with two children and five grandchildren who retired from the Daily Mail at the end of 2018 but was brought back to create a weekly cartoon for the Mail on Sunday. He now spends his time writing novels and children's books.
