Lobey Dosser Statue, Glasgow

Any tourist worth his salt wants to see as many places and things of interest as possible in the city he is visiting and while in Glasgow the Lobey Dosser Statue on Woodside Road, opposite the Halt Bar, will obviously be on your list of statues not to miss.

Okay, so who was Lobey Dosser? With a name like that, surely he can’t be for real? Well, no, actually he’s not. Lobey Dosser sprang from the very fertile imagination of Bud Neill, who was a cartoonist and a poet.

Lobey was created in 1949 and his first adventures appeared in the Evening Times, where he stayed as a popular fixture until 1956. He then moved to the Sunday Mail until 1959. His creator, Bud, had been spoon-fed American Western movies since his early childhood and he loved them. Lobey was his way of paying them tribute.

The cartoon strip featured Lobey as the Sheriff of Calton Creek “somewhere in Arizona”, his two-legged horse El Fideldo and a host of characters from Lobey’s arch-enemy, Rank Bajin, to Indian chiefs, Big Chief Toffy Teeth and Chief Rubber Lugs.

The statue was made free of charge by two art students, Nick Gillon and Tom Morrow, who won the competition, set by the Glasgow Herald to build a statue in memory of Bud Neill who died in 1970. The bronze statue features Lobey and Rank riding together on El Fideldo.