Admired by his colleagues Stanley Franklin called him one of the greatest caricaturists of all time he continued to

Admired by his colleagues (Stanley Franklin called him “one of the greatest caricaturists of all time”), he continued to draw for the paper for more than 40 years, eventually retiring in 1991 after being involved in a road accident.Though he often used photographs, Sallon preferred to work from life and drew in both colour and black-and-white with a pencil, pen and brush. In 1943 he began contributing regularly to the Daily Herald, where he became a friend of Michael Foot (then a columnist for the paper). Two years later he met his wife, Anna Simon, a Welsh-born teacher of Lithuanian parents, whilst on a Jewish rambling club outing; they were married shortly afterwards and settled in Dollis Hill, north London.In 1948 he was taken on as staff caricaturist on the Daily Mirror, working with the journalist Bill Connor (Cassandra) and the political cartoonists Zec, Vicky (from 1954), Franklin (from 1959), Keith Waite (from 1969) and later Trog (Wally Fawkes). Other freelance work during this period included illustrations for Tatler, Bystander, Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News, the Daily Mail, the Daily Sketch, Reader’s Digest, The Observer and the Daily Express.During the Second World War, he continued working for the press and also produced propaganda caricatures for aerial leaflets etc, and drew for Message (the newspaper of the free Belgian government in London). Realising he had a talent for capturing a likeness, he decided to return to London and in 1925 enrolled to study fine art at St Martin’s School of Art.

However, he soon discovered that his real skills lay in caricature and left the same year to join Everybody’s Weekly as a staff artist, remaining with the magazine for 20 years.In 1930 he also became resident caricaturist on The Jewish Chronicle, beginning a relationship with the paper that would span more than six decades. Called up at the age of 18, he joined the Pioneer Corps during the First World War and served in France, remaining in the army until 1921.In 1922 he moved to Durban, South Africa, where he worked for a relative and whilst there began contributing caricatures to the Natal Mercury in his spare time. Born Rachmiel David Zelon in 1899 in the village of Sheps, near Warsaw, in what was then Russian-controlled Poland, he was one of nine children and the eldest son of Isaac Meyer Zelon (or Zielun) – a tailor specialising in military uniforms and women’s clothes. Fleeing Tsarist persecution, the family came to England in 1904 and settled amongst the Jewish community in Whitechapel in the East End of London.
When Ralph was about 11 years old, they moved to Hornsey where he attended Crouch End School and (briefly) Hornsey School of Art before working in a canning factory and then as a clerk in Gamages department store.

RALPH SALLON was, in the words of Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, speaking at a reception after Sallon had been appointed MBE in 1977, “the doyen of caricaturists today”. He was also, by his remarkable longevity, the last link with the great cartoonists of the 19th century: Phil May, Sir John Tenniel, “Spy” (Sir Leslie Ward) and Max Beerbohm were all still alive at his birth, Queen Victoria was on the throne and, had he lived until the New Year, Sallon would have seen out three centuries as well as two world wars and 21 prime ministers. One distinguished commentator who immediately recognised its calibre was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who, writing in 1915, called the truce “an amazing spectacle” and saluted it as “one human episode amid all the atrocities which have stained the memory of the war.”Malcolm Brown is the co- author, with Shirley Seaton, of `Christmas Truce: the Western Front December 1914′ (Pan, pounds 7.99). He will give a talk on the truce today, at the Imperial War Museum, at 2pm and 3.30pm. Was the event suppressed? Far from it, accounts were published in almost every newspaper in Britain; even the American press carried the story. As well as the huddles of men joking and exchanging souvenirs, there were other more sombre groups out that Christmas Day, attending to the burial of the dead.What of the generals? Some raged, others saw that a truce could allow the improvement of what at that time were merely rudimentary trenches.