The way Uderzo’s comic book panels progressed from rudimentary was an important lesson for a child

• Asterix creator Albert Uderzo dies at 92
• The art of Asterix – in pictures

Asterix has been part of our lives for nearly 60 years, and of mine for nearly 50. I still remember my immediate assent to René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s world: it seemed right and fine that a Gaulish village should still hold out against the Roman invader, that combat should be determined by punch-ups in which no one is killed, that a shrewd, plucky and resourceful warrior should be best friends with a big lunk about three times his size. It also made sense that the chief of the village (never named, just “the village”) should be a henpecked figure of fun (albeit as brave as anyone when in a tight corner) and that the druid should be a venerable, white-bearded figure whose wisdom derived, in great part, from a delicious sense of the absurd.

The British are satirised with an affection that borders on love