In October 2020, Bob Moran published a cartoon privately on social media. Bob was still employed by the Telegraph newspaper, though he would soon be sacked from this position. 

Bob’s cartoon was of an old man and woman on a hill, overlooking rolling fields and a nestled homestead. It was titled ‘Never surrender your right to be with the people you love.’

The following year, Bob published a variation on his cartoon. This time, the fields are covered in snow and the man and woman stand closer to one another. The title was still ‘Never surrender your right to be with the people you love.’ 

Bob’s reputation for righteous resistance to Covid restrictions grew on the back of a bobmorangetsit hashtag. And so Bob Moran did get it – the fulsome outlines of his first freelance cartoon cut through the amassing complexities of Covid messaging with a statement of searing simplicity: there are people and places that are of you and for you, always.