Now for reasons I don’t fully understand I wasn’t a great reader as a child.
And that was odd because both mum and dad devoured books which they got from the public library and the private lending library.
In any one week both would have two or three on the go but I despite being a junior member of the library rarely got past chapter one.
All of that changed sometime around my thirteenth birthday, but before that I was content to fall back on comics and picture history books.
They ranged from the Eagle to a succession of other comics and to those wonderful books by R J Unstead.
And in 1961 or possibly 1962 I fell across Look and Learn which for the rest of that decade and into the next came into our house.
It was a fine mix of useful knowledge, adventure stories and offered the work of some of the best artists.
None of the earliest copies have survived but we have something like a 100 from the early 70s. By that time I had left home for Manchester but on the regular visits back I would slide into reading the editions which fell through the door.
And very recently I asked and got a compendium book of the best of Look and Learn as a Christmas present.
Now none of this is nostalgia but more a simple reflection that in a pre internet age Look and Learn and indeed the Eagle comic were a magnificent way of picking up knowledge in a way that appealed to me and countless others.
Picture; cover of Look and Learn no. 613 October 13, 1973 ..... Every Monday Price 10p
In any one week both would have two or three on the go but I despite being a junior member of the library rarely got past chapter one.
All of that changed sometime around my thirteenth birthday, but before that I was content to fall back on comics and picture history books.
They ranged from the Eagle to a succession of other comics and to those wonderful books by R J Unstead.
And in 1961 or possibly 1962 I fell across Look and Learn which for the rest of that decade and into the next came into our house.
It was a fine mix of useful knowledge, adventure stories and offered the work of some of the best artists.
And very recently I asked and got a compendium book of the best of Look and Learn as a Christmas present.
Now none of this is nostalgia but more a simple reflection that in a pre internet age Look and Learn and indeed the Eagle comic were a magnificent way of picking up knowledge in a way that appealed to me and countless others.
Picture; cover of Look and Learn no. 613 October 13, 1973 ..... Every Monday Price 10p
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