Charlie Mackesy was born during a snowy winter in Northumberland. He has been a cartoonist for The Spectator and a book illustrator for Oxford University Press. He has collaborated with Richard Curtis for Comic Relief, and Nelson Mandela on a lithograph project, The Unity Series. He has lived and painted in South Africa, Southern Africa and New Orleans, and co-runs a social enterprise, Mama Buci, in Zambia, which helps families of low and no income to become beekeepers. He lives in London but is often in Suffolk. Visit him at charliemackesy.com