When comic strips don’t get any better ……… The Perishers

For Lois and Uncle Michael, 1949-2003

 I first stumbled across the Perishers sometime around 1967 or 1968.

They featured in a comic strip in the Daily Mirror, and had first appeared in 1959.

The central five characters consisted of four children and a dog.

Wellington was an orphan boy who lived alone with his large dog, called Boot who was a generally affable and mellow character, given to flights of fancy and daydreaming. 

Marlon was  amiable but not very bright. 

Maisie appeared on the surface as the girl next door but was domineering and a bully, with a tendency to become violent if she didn't get her own way, with a scream that could stun woodworm. 

Baby Grumpling always  spoke  entirely in lower-case letters.*

On the scene occasionally came The Crabs, Plain Jane, who was a friend of Maisie’s, Fiscal Yere: a millionaire's son who always complained about the problems of being rich, and a wealth of other bizarre and funny kids and animals.

And as so often happens with long running comic strips there were a series of catch phrases, of "Go-faster stripes", "Need any help with that paper bag ?" and "Yeuk!!" have remained with me and often fall off my lips at the appropriate moment.

So "Go-faster stripes", were the additional features Wellington attached to the buggies he tried to sell to Marlon, while "Need any help with that paper bag ?" was Maisie’s opening words when ever anyone opened a bag of crisps, all the more annoying because she could detect the sound of the bag opening from incredible distances.

And lastly "Yeuk!!" was always Marlon’s response when Maisie attempted to kiss him.

And armed with these, and a few more catch phrases, our heroes encountered countless adventures, which appealed to a 17 year old, who also followed the Magic Roundabout.

The five followed me north from south east London to Manchester and were quickly embraced by my close friends, to the point where Lois was often seen as Maisie, and Mike as a brighter version of Marlon, and John as the savvy and technically minded Wellington.

All of which left me as Boot, a role I assumed with weary resignation, but which was not without an element of accuracy, given that I like Boot have always been prone to flights of fancy and daydreaming, which in Boot’s case included the conviction that he was in fact an 18th-century English lord enchanted into a dog.

The strip was created by Maurice Dodd, drawn  by Dennis Collins and later by Mr. Dodd and Bill Mevin.

Once I had a whole collection of Perisher’s books made up from the newspaper cartoon strip, alas many have not survived the passing years, although a few have sat gathering dust in a corner of the cellar, and this 1978, 21st edition is one of them.  

Helpfully it also offered up a biography of my five pals, reminding me that Boot’s response to many situations was “By the Lord Harry”, Marlon liked inch thick ketchup sandwiches which invariably burst out of the bread to cover anyone close by, Wellington had been named after his own footwear, Maisie first encountered Marlon because he was too slow to "even get out of the way of an on rushing tortoise” and Baby Grumpling who regularly helped himself to the Sunday collection at church explaining “Why do they keep handing it round if they don’t want you to take it?**

So that is about it, but as I close I am reminded that Uncle Michael would sometimes refer to one of my sons as Baby Grumpling, but my lips are sealed as to which of them he referred to.

Location the Daily Mirror

Pictures; the famous five from The Perishers No 21, Maurice Dodd & Dennis Collins, A Mirror Book, 1978

*The Perishers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perishers

** The Perishers No 21, Maurice Dodd & Dennis Collins, A Mirror Book, 1978