Jim Graham, a teacher at The Armidale school in northern New South Wales, directed musicals at his high school for 40 years. He did all the classics, but none was more satisfying than when he wrote one himself and turned his favourite cartoon character into a musical.

"I got tired of everything being American. Ginger Meggs relates to what we think are the good old Australian virtues, mateship, good fun, larakinism, a slight disrespect for authority but basic honesty," he said.

Jim wrote the book and lyrics and teamed with Gary Downe for the music.

The musical was so popular it went professional. The New England Theatre company toured it across the state, staged it at the Festival of Sydney and later the Victorian Arts Centre staged it before more than 15,000 students over two years.

Jim says the musical has been very popular with both cast and audience.

"They can easily relate to the Australian characters , and are drawn into it, because basically we are talking about something that is an extension of themselves."

Each of the two musicals, "Here Comes Gingers Meggs" and "Ginger Meggs and the Missing Link" are based on a Day in the Life of Ginger Meggs. In the Missing link: urged on by his mate Benny he borrows his Dad's state of the art computer fishing rod, along the way he tries to woo his sweetheart Min, with a choc top at the movies, gets into a scrap with Tiger Kelly, falls into the creek, loses his clothes and finds the missing daughter of a millionaire.

Ginger Meggs the comic strip was born in 1922 and it's believed the original boy was aged about ten to twelve years of age.

"He's just starting to get interested in girls, but he doesn't shave yet," said Jim.

But both the cartoon strip, which is still syndicated to 80 newspapers around Australia, and the musicals move with the times.

"Both James Kemsley the current cartoonist and myself, insist that the language and situations that involve Ginger are set in the 2000's" said Jim.

"I first read Ginger Meggs in the 1940's and he dressed and spoke like me. Today though he wears baseball caps, his fishing rod has a computer and he gets into scraps over video cameras," he said.

The musical can be staged by a small ensemble of six , with actors playing up to three roles or each, or you can divide 18 lead roles amongst your cast and have an unlimited size chorus.

The songs are terrific , including : 'Wishin I was Fishin', 'Saturday Morning', 'Shake Mate', 'The Lad is growing up', 'Tiger's Hit the Jackpot', and 'I'm not Afraid'.

To mark Jim's retirement from the Armidale School both of the productions were revived, a few months ago at Sydney's Independent Theatre.

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