War II, he attended Camberwell Art College for two years. In 1949, he joined the Daily Mail as a cartoonist, where he remained until 1956. He was one of the collaborators with Wally Fawkes on the long-running cartoon strip Flook. The jazzman Lyttelton received a grant for further study. He went to Camberwell School of Art, where he met Wally Fawkes, a fellow jazz enthusiast and clarinet-player, also known as the cartoonist "Trog". In 1949, Fawkes helped him to get a job with the Daily Mail writing the words for Flook, Fawkes's comic strip. They had both joined the George Webb Dixielanders in 1947. Webb was an important catalyst in the British postwar jazz boom. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Lyttelton was prominent in the British revival of traditional jazz forms from New Orleans, recording with Sidney Bechet in 1949. To do so he had to break with the Musicians' Union restrictive practices which forbade working with jazz musicians from the United States. In 1956, he had his only pop chart hit, with the Joe Meek-produced recording of "Bad Penny Blues", which was in the UK Singles Chart for six weeks. Over time, Lyttelton gradually shifted to a more mainstream approach favoured by American musicians such as trumpeter Buck Clayton. By 1953 he had begun to add saxophonists to the lineup. On one occasion in that year, the development did not meet with the approval of his fans. At a Birmingham Town Hall concert at which alto saxophonist Bruce Turner debuted, a banner with the words "Go Home Dirty Bopper!" was prominently unfolded. Occasionally, with the help of Eddie Harvey, he assembled a big band for BBC broadcasts and records. In 1957 and 1958 blues singer Jimmy Rushing toured England with the band, as did Clayton, Vic Dickenson and Big Joe Turner in 1965. Clayton recorded with Lyttelton in the early 1960s and toured with the band on numerous occasions. Clayton considered himself and Lyttelton to be brothers. He also recorded with visiting Americans Al Casey, Buddy Tate, and Kenny Davern. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1958, when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre. By now his repertoire had expanded, including not only lesser known Duke Ellington pieces, but even "The Champ" from Dizzy Gillespie's band book. The Lyttelton band — he saw himself primarily as a leader