Lancelot Speed

Lancelot Speed (13 June 1860 – 31 December 1931) was a coastal painter and a British illustrator of books in the Victorian era, usually of a fantastical or romantic nature.

Lancelot Speed's cartoon work is the source of the nickname for the colourful commander of the World War II Special Forces unit "Popski's Private Army".

Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Peniakoff, DSO MC, a Belgian of White Russian descent, was called "Popski" by Bill Kennedy Shaw, the Intelligence Officer of the Long Range Desert Group because his signallers had trouble with the spelling of his surname.

Peniakoff earned early notoriety (and his MC) with his behind-the-lines raids to blow up German petrol dumps, transported there and back, in some exasperation, by the LRDG.

[citation needed] In the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred adventures before the start of World War II, there were two hairy characters: one was a scheming, plotting, bomb-throwing Bolshevik, and the other was his dog.