Hartlepool cartoon character Andy Capp given new lease of life in new book The Redemption of Andy Capp

The Redemption of Andy Capp tells the story of creator Reg Smythe, who was from the town and who drew the universally popular cartoon figure Andy Capp for the Daily Mirror from 1957 until 1998,

Andy Capp was a well-known fictional working-class figure from Hartlepool who never actually worked.

Paul Slade, author of The Redemption of Andy Capp – which is the fifth book he has written – said: “Smythe was a world-class cartoonist who poured a lot of his own troubled childhood into this work.

"He based Andy on his own wastrel father, Andy’s wife Flo on his formidable mum and drew their surroundings as a faithful depiction of the working class Hartlepool neighbourhood where he himself had grown up.

"Even the terraced house on the Headland he gave Andy and Flo to live in – 37 Durham Street – was the one Reg’s mum had moved into after divorcing his dad.”

Speaking about the inspiration for his book, Paul, who lives in London, said: “I’ve been a fan of Smythe’s Andy Capp strip ever since relatives would buy me the collections for childhood birthdays, and was sorry to see it so often dismissed today.

"When Homer Simpson called Andy a “wife beating drunk” in a 1993 episode of The Simpsons, it convinced a whole generation there was no more to Smythe’s work than crude misogynist jokes.

"I wanted to show people that simply wasn’t true.”

At the peak of its publication, Andy Capp had a readership of 250 million people across 52 countries and continues to hold memories for a lot of people today.

Paul said: “In writing the book, I wanted to remind people what a superbly skilled and innovative cartoonist Reg Smythe had been, set out the full story of the strip’s globe-straddling success and show how firmly Andy’s adventures are embedded in Hartlepool."

Reg sadly died from lung cancer in 1998 although Andy Capp lived on thanks to writer Roger Kettle and artist Roger Mahoney.

Paul’s book is now available on Amazon.