Each country has its monuments and treasures. Among Bermuda's is 'Woppend' – the annual collection of cartoons created by Peter Woolcock and published weekly in The Royal Gazette.

Eagerly awaited, each year's edition provides a humourous reminder of events and issues, of which some might shake their heads and say, 'Only in Bermuda'. Unlike the newpaper editions, which are topical and therefore au fait to the reader, when reprinted in 'Woppend', the author adds to each one brief background notes which serve both as an aide memoire to events perhaps forgotten, and a useful potted history in the future.

So time-proven and successful is the 'Woppend' formula, that its gifted creator now feels he has said all that needs to be said about himself and the contents of each edition. Instead, he has set a different course for this, his 20th edition: he will discuss the front cover.

"While I would prefer to talk about the new children's book, 'Bermuda's Toad with One Eye', which Andrew Stevenson and I have just brought out, since this is the 'official interview', let's get on with it!" Mr. Woolcock begins.

"In essence, this year's cover is a line-up of all the Premiers that I have, if not served under, then at least drawn," and he then proceeds to discuss each one in turn.

"Starting from the left, there is Sir David Gibbons. In 1987, the Banks of Bermuda and Butterfield, in their efforts to entice new customers, announced their own innovative 'Bond Issues' so I had them in a Wild West, High Noon scenario as 'Bermuda Butch and the Butterfield Kid'.

'Next is Sir John Swan, who gave the voters an option of Independence or his resignation – in fact, 'To be or not to be'. The result was, obviously, 'Not to be'.

"Following him is Premier David Saul as the Chinese balancing conjurer 'Dr. Sol-teik-ol'. Dr. Saul had just produced a budget that nobody liked.

"Next is Premier Pamela Gordon, who is saying to her new Environment minister,'this is all yours now!', which turns out to be piles of rotting containers filled with asbestos. Mr. John Irving Pearman is not too pleased.

"Then we have Dame Jennifer Smith, and she is celebrating the PLP's third anniversary of coming to power – a sort of 'Happy Birthday to us'.

Next is Premier Alex Scott. "I have featured Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory and his Creature many times through the years. I think Premier Alex Scott, in fact, features twice in these surroundings in volume 18 of 'Woppend'.

"Finally, we have Premier Ewart Brown in his possibly unwise appearance on stage to inroduce Bermuda's local-boy-made-star Collie Buddz. After being booed, Dr. Brown displays his T-shirt with the words, 'Blind to you haters'."

Beneath the Premiers runs a quotation from 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam': "Think...how Sultan after Sultan with his pomp, abode his hour or two and went his way", plus the two lizards holding a 2008-9 banner. "They come and they go," says one. "They do indeed," replies the other. The back cover ends another tradition: a current photograph of Mr. Woolcock taken by his daughter, Diana Andrew. Instead, there is a photo of the cartoonist in early childhood, either side of which the lizards quip: "Now this I like. Woppened to him? To which his mate replies: "He grew into what he is. Still can't keep his pants up."

It is yet another example of the deft humour which has made 'Woolcock' a household name, and whose work brings great pleasure, even to the lampooned.

Beneath the vintage photograph, the cartoonist provides some thoughts and observances of his own, before concluding, in reference to the oftentimes crazy business of politics which formed "the underlying lunatic approach to most of his cartoons".

"Perhaps Robert Louis Stevenson was right when he said it was 'the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary'," he said

Fittingly, The Royal Gazette editor, William Zuill, was invited to write the foreword for the 20th edition. In this he expresses the hope that, while Mr. Woolcock "drops hints that he may hang up his pen one of these days", he asks everyone to join him in hoping that such a day will never come.

The much-loved cartoonist dedicates his milestone edition to "all those who, down through the long years, week by week, have been featured (in one form or another) in these volumes", and says he is "most grateful to all of them for providing the stimulant".

'Woppend' (Bermujan for 'What happened?') sells for $14.95 and can be found in many outlets throughout the Island.