The Broons
The Broons is a comic strip within The Sunday Post newspaper, which is printed by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. It features the Brown (Broon in Scots) family, who live in a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street, in the fictional Scottish town of Auchentoogle or Auchenshoogle, an amalgam of Dundee and Glasgow. Created and drawn by Dudley D. Watkins, the strip made its first appearance in the issue dated 8 March 1936.
Since its inception The Broons have had their own bi-annual, alternating each year with Oor Wullie. No annuals were published during World War II due to paper rationing.
Characters
The Family Members include:
- Maw Broon - the mother of the 8 youngest Broons. She has to run every aspect of the household and keep Paw in line.
- Paw Broon - a working stiff who just tries to keep enough back for a bit of 'baccy' (tobacco) and a bet on the horses. With his combover hairstyle and walrus moustache, his appearance was supposedly based on A.C. "Archie" Brown, the chief editor of D.C. Thomson at the time The Broons originated.
- Granpaw Broon - Paw's father, he lives in his own house and spends most of his time sitting on a park bench with his 'cronies' (friends). Shares Paw's preoccupation with having an ample supply of tobacco. Granpaw was a slightly later addition, not appearing in the earliest strips. A first name is not given for the character, although it begins with a "J".
- Daphne Broon - the somewhat dowdy daughter who is always playing second fiddle to Maggie on double dates. Every few years she has a stroke of luck when the double dates get mixed up and she gets Maggie's man. At least once a year Daphne tries to go on a diet but fails to lose any weight.
- Hen Broon - the lanky, awkward son. About 30 years old and an average guy who rarely gets the girl. He is often taken advantage of for his height, for example being made to act as a clothes stand to keep the washing line up. Early Broon cartoons featured Hen wearing a zoot suit. He is a Rangers supporter.
- Joe Broon - a regular guy, usually noted for his strength and love of boxing. He is a Celtic supporter.
- Maggie Broon - the beautiful, glamorous daughter with blonde hair. Has a steady stream of beaus. In earlier times, was called Sadie.
- Horace Broon - a bookish schoolboy forever trying to learn poetry by rote amidst the chaos of a do-it-yourself chimney-sweeping mishap or other domestic turmoil.
- The Twins (one is called Eck, and they are always refered to collectively, with few exceptions having Granpaw calling them: "ae' twin" and "the ither twin") - rambunctious youngsters usually adding to the chaos with a fistfight or a good game of cowboys and Indians.
- The Bairn - basically a smaller version of Maw, she is getting in her practice of indignant moral pronouncements and pointing out the foolishness of the male Broons.
During the 1970s stories drawn by Tom Lavery, another character named Dave MacKay was regularly featured. Dave was Maggie's long-term boyfriend and was often implied to be engaged to her. His parents were upper-class, much to the chagrin of Paw and Maw. Maggie's character also changed during this time , becoming more posh (and, unlike the rest of the Broons, spoke English instead of Scots). When Peter Davidson took over from Lavery, the character was dropped.
Storylines
Most of the humour derives from the timeless themes of the 'generation gap', stretching the money as far as possible, and the constant struggle for each family member to live in a very small flat with 9 other Broons. In the end the family is always together through it all, getting through life with a gentle good humour as they argue amongst themselves. Another staple of the series is misunderstanding: inevitably the Bairn or the Twins mishear something Granpaw or another family member says, and the whole family act on it until the truth is revealed in the final panel. An example is where the Bairn overhears Maggie talking about her latest beau, and reports to the rest of the family that she heard Maggie say he was half-French and half-Polish. When Maggie says she's bringing him to tea, Hen runs out to buy French wine, Horace swots up on his Polish dictionary, etc. Finally they meet the fellow, who greets the family in broad Scots. It turns out he's a french-polisher - "polish" being pronounced as "Polish" in Scots.
Trivia
- All the characters speak in the broad Scots vernacular, of a slightly antiquated, Dundonian style.
- Some suppose that the 'Glebe Street' the Broons live in is actually in Glasgow. However the dialect used unquestionably places them in D.C. Thomson's home town of Dundee. However, the current writer said in a BBC Scotland documentary aired in 2005 that despite their Dundonian roots, the home town was always meant to represent Glasgow. There are some stories which suggest this to be the case. (Such as trips to the Glasgow Empire Exhibition and Garden Festival, implied to be local events, as well as a man referring to "The Broons from Glesgow" (sic) in one early strip. This is at odds with some of the scripts where you can see a No32 bus with the sign for Fintry (an area of Dundee) and mentions of the "Fifey" a small boat that was used to ferry passengers between Dundee and Fife right up to the mid 70's.
- The Broons live in roughly the same area as Oor Wullie. They occasionally feature in Wullie's strips, and Wullie's adversary P.C. Murdoch has appeared in The Broons. Wullie and his pals can be seen ogling Maggie as she walks through the town.
- Despite their humble background, The Broons own a 'But an' Ben', a small cottage in the countryside.
- Watkins drew the strip from his Broughty Ferry home until his death in 1969. Peter Davidson is the current artist, succeeding Ken H. Harrison (This is actually Davidson's second stint as artist, the first being in the early 1980s), BBC Radio Scotland presenter Tom Morton is the current scriptwriter.
- For five years after Watkins' death, D.C. Thomson recycled old strips in the newspaper and annuals, fearing no adequate replacement could be found to match Watkins' unique style. In these repeated strips, some particularly broad dialect words were replaced (e.g. 'ahent' became 'behind') and the pre-decimal coinage was updated. Watkins was eventually succeeded in the mid-1970s by Tom Lavery.
- The early editions of The Broons annual are highly sought-after collectors' items, fetching in excess of four-figure sums at auction.
- The Broons were immortalized in the BBC Scotland comedy sketch show Naked Video. In the sketches, Tony Roper played Paw, Gregor Fisher played Maw, Elaine C Smith played the Bairn, and Jonathan Watson played Joe.
See also
List of DC Thomson publications
External links
- That's Braw!, a fan-site dedicated to Oor Wullie and The Broons.