[citation needed] Born in York County, Ontario in 1920, Roy was first published at the age of 14 in the school newspaper at Runnymede Collegiate in Toronto.
His father was an athlete and Chief of Police in Swansea, where Roy explored the community between High Park and the Humber River, observing the differences between life as lived and as perceived and recorded.
He said his first drawing instruction came from an architectural student who, courting Roy's older sister, needed to keep the youngster occupied with something else.
Signed as "Roi", Carless cartoons have been published in independent and labour publications in both official languages and in every province of Canada right to the Arctic Circle.
Remarkably, he did this while working full-time on an assembly line in Hamilton, Canada, and while chief steward of the union that represented employees in the plant.