When the going gets tough, the tough - laugh. It's perhaps the most endearing quality we Brits possess, and never was the British sense of humour more important than during the Second World War. Even the Government recognised that laughing at the enemy was a valuable weapon in our arsenal. Cyril Bird, Art Editor on Punch at the outbreak of war, offered his services free of charge to the wartime government. Under the pen name Fougasse he produced a series of posters, which today are probably the most enduring images of British home front propaganda - Careless Talk Costs Lives. The Cheltenham born artist took his professional name from the fougasse, a French anti personnel mine to which he likened his cartoons - "its effectiveness is not always reliable and its aim uncertain." Closer to home the mirth maker on the Swindon Evening Advertiser was George Arthur Middlelton. George was born in Pontefract in 1888, the son of James Robert Middleton, a corn facto...