One of Australia's best known cartoonists, Eric Jolliffe delighted the children with drawings of Saltbush Bill and Strawberry the cow.

He left the School a drawing of Saltbush Bill milking Strawberry and a book of his cartoons for the School library.

Eric Ernest Jolliffe was born in Portsmouth, England on 31 January 1907, the youngest son in a family of twelve children born to a carpenter and his wife.

The Jolliffe family immigrated to Perth, Western Australia, in 1911, before finally settling in Sydney.

Eric described his childhood as poverty-ridden, with the family often moving house "just one step ahead of the landlord".

Leaving school at fourteen, he tried a number of jobs in Sydney before setting out to explore Australia a couple of years later.

He travelled extensively through rural Queensland and New South Wales, working variously as a rabbit trapper, boundary rider and shearing shed hand.

Although he loved the bush, Jolliffe realised he needed a job in the city to live more comfortably and moved back there aged around twenty.

He read in a book that artistic ability was not a gift but something you could learn.

Whilst working as a window cleaner during the day, Eric attended art classes at East Sydney Technical College.

Eric submitted large numbers of cartoons to The Bulletin magazine which bought his first drawing, and from 1930 to the beginning of World War 2 was able to earn a living as a freelance cartoonist.

He married Scottish-born accountant Mary (May) Clark in 1932 and they had one daughter, Margaret.

During World War 2, Eric joined the RAAF as a camouflage artist and was posted to the Kimberleys and Arnhem Land where he first met tribal Aborigines.

He developed an interest in their social and cultural life, and their ability to live off a desolate land.

Increasingly, Aborigines featured prominently in Eric's cartoons where he claimed he depicted them "sensitively without sentiment".

In 1945, he sent the first of his Saltbush Bill cartoons to Pix magazine, where they were published for almost fifty years.

Eric also published his cartoons in book form and by the time he visited Kempsey in 1976, he had published his 100th book of cartoons.

He was invited to the Macleay Valley by Irvine Henry Davis, descendant of the pioneer family of the Upper Macleay.

During a week in Kempsey, he visited the Beranghi Folk Museum which he described as the best he had ever seen for size and content.

He was very impressed with proprietors Gwen and Arthur Gill, who entertained him at a bush dinner in the old cottage served on 100 year old plates.

Eric described Arthur Gill as a "natural raconteur".Eric and his wife also visited Bellbrook, where he spent time sketching and gathering material for his Witchetty's Tribe and Saltbush Bill books.

He also indulged his interest in bush architecture with meticulous drawings of sheds, huts, barns and other records of a disappearing heritage.

Later editions of his cartoon books included features on the Gills and their Beranghi Folk Museum (the building is now part of Kempsey Museum) and Cedar Cutters of the Macleay.

Eric Jolliffe was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1998 for his service to art as a cartoonist and illustrator. He passed away at his home in Bateau Bay on 16 November 2001.

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