The wrath of the Jelly Men …….. comic terrors no.1 …… 1960

In truth I wasn’t frightened of the Jelly Men ….. more just fascinated.

They appeared one day in the Beezer sometime in 1960 as an invading force.

They came out of the sea and had the power to trap people, animals, vehicles and even buildings in giant bubbles which were blown from their tentacles.

Just where they originally came from, their real purpose and their eventual fate are now lost in time.

And here I have a confession which D.C Thompson who published the comic may well shudder at, but the Beezer and its comic pal the Topper were not my first choice. 

That fell to the Beano and Dandy, and years later when our own children came along, our Ben got the Beano and Josh the Dandy.

Almost thirty-nine years later Ben still gets the Beano annual in his Christmas stocking.

And as I am in to confession in that great league table of comics I have to admit that the Eagle triumphed over all of them.

But this is about the Jelly Men and the heroic struggle by a group of school children to defeat them, and what a titanic struggle it became.

The Beezer reported that “Edinburgh! London! North, South, East, West – Britain is overrun by The Jelly Men”, filling the page with images of a television broadcaster describing scenes of horror as they wade ashore in Scotland, are fished up by trawler men, derail trains and imprison news vendors, as well as soldiers guarding Buckingham Palace, and interrupting a football match by encasing the goalkeeper in a bubble. 

I should have spotted the clue in a trailer the comic ran on January 22nd, which took the reader deep into the ocean,  offering up that “There are few places on this Earth where Man has not set foot. 

The highest mountain, the deepest jungle and the frozen wasteland.  

All have been explored, their mysteries laid bare.  But one area remains unconquered.  

It is the mysterious floor of the World’s deepest oceans. 

Wearing special diving suits man has invaded the home of the shark, the swordfish and lower still the giant ray. 

In enormously strong steel chambers, he has penetrated even farther into the bark depths.  But beyond in the inky blackness undisturbed for centuries who know what form of life may exist.  Perhaps strange creatures like THE JELLY MEN?”

So I now know what happened to them but as yet not their fate.

But here the kind archivist at D.C Thompson may take pity and trawl the old copies of the Beezer for the answer.

He was kind enough to help me get permission to use images of The Jelly Men and I rather think on a cold December day he might enjoy finding out for me.

That said the strip first appeared in 1960, ran to five series of which the fourth in 1985 was a reprint.*

Location; Britain in 1960

Pictures; The Jelly Men, 1960, courtesy of DC Thomson & Co Ltd"

* List of Beezer comic strips, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Beezer_comic_strips

When the Ferry met Dan Dare and arrived on our door mat ...... a thank you to Tricia

Now I had no idea that the Woolwich Ferry would fall through our letter box today.

I say the Ferry but it was one of those cut away diagrams which featured in the Eagle Comic.

All of which made it a nice double whammy because as everyone knows I have a “thing” for the Ferry, but also because The Eagle was and still is my comic.

It was launched in 1950 and around 1959 I discovered it in the classroom of 3B in Edmund Waller School on one of those wet playtimes, and I was hooked and I spent a chunk of the ‘90s buying up copies, eventually splashing out on whole volumes.

But Vol 13 No. 32 which came out on August 11 1962 wasn’t one of them although it will have been one I read.

And now it has joined the collection which is all due to Tricia who knowing my fascination for the Ferry found it on eBay and the rest was a click of the mouse and a trip to the post office.

It arrived today and I am a very happy chap.

The cutaway diagram was one of the most popular features of the comic and week in week out we would be treated to the workings of the Routemaster Bus, the Spitfire, endless submarines, railway locomotives and even a series on atomic powered vehicles, including an aircraft and rocket.

It fitted the optimistic 1950s when all things seemed possible, including the fact that the top test pilot for Space Fleet would Dan Dare who had been born in Manchester and the head of the organization would not be an American or a Russian but Sir Hubert Guest.

That said Space Fleet was under the direction of the United Nations.

By the time the Woolwich Ferry appeared Dan Dare had been bundled away to the inside and LT. Hornblower, RN carried the front page while the cutaway now sat at the back.

None of this has diminished my pleasure at re-reading an old friend after fifty-six years.

And yes I have poured over the cutaway and even fancy I have located my favourite seat.

So here for all is the cutaway with special thanks to Tricia and links to stories about the Eagle Comic*, Comics of the 1950s**, and Eagle Times***, which is the journal of the Eagle Society

Location; Woolwich, 1962

Picture; The New Woolwich Ferry and the front cover of the Eagle, Vol 13 No.32 August 11 1962

*The Eagle; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagle

**Comics of the 1950s, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Comics%20of%20the%201950s

*** Eagle Times, Annual subscription UK £29, overseas £40, and as a start you can visit the site https://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/

Christmas Eve with the Eagle

Christmas Eve with the Eagle

The Eagle always celebrated Christmas by decorating the main panel.



Location; Christmas



Picture, Eagle, Vol 6. No. 51 December 23, 1955, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A happy Christmas from the 1950s

It's not often you get a Christmas card from the 1950s dropping through the letter box.

Anyone who regularly read the Eagle comic will recognise the rocket ship and the names Digby and the Meakon.*

At which point l shall not say any more about the two or the Christmas decorated ship hurtling through space.

Instead l will just confess that the card was no time travelling bit of Christmas cheer, instead it came from The Eagle Society that society of like minded happy bunch dedicated to keeping the memory of the Eagle alive.**

It was this years contribution.

And of course l have been one of those happy members for four decades and an "Eagler" since 1957.

Picture; Christmas card from the Eagle Society, from the front page of the Eagle comic, December 22, 1950, No. 37

*The Eagle, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Eagle

**The Eagle Society, https://eagle-times.blogspot.com/

Back with the Eagle in the 1950s

Now if you were born sometime between the early 1940s and the mid ‘50s, the chances are you were a fan of the Eagle comic.

It is a topic I keep coming back to and the reason is that back then it amounted to the best of British comics.

Its appeal crossed class lines as well gender and if my father was anything to go by attracted an older generation as well.

It came out each week and like other comics of the period had its own Christmas annual which was supplemented by books on some of the other leading characters.

But for me the Eagle Annual which first appeared in December 1950 was a must under the tree and it kept me going through the year, because here as well as comic strips were extended stories articles on sport , history science  and nature.

In between there were practical information on how to make a Kite-released parachute, sending secret messages using invisible ink and making your own printing set.

Never being particularly practical most of these DIY projects rated little more than a second glance.

For me it was the sections dealing with history and the stories which drew me in.

And of the stories it was Dan Dare Pilot of the Future who always was my first choice.

At this point I have to say this is no nostalgic trip. Instead is an exploration of how a popular comic managed at the same to introduce a whole pile of educational information which never led you to think you were back at school.

Nor were the books or comics aimed at the middle class, for there was enough here for any lad like me whose highest aspirations seemed to be a secondary modern school and a future mapped out in one of any one of a number of practical occupations.

The activities were all rooted in things any nine year could do and the stories were  in a world I understood.

And when they were based in space the Wild West or North Africa they were believable.

What is more the science of the future was our everyday life just a little different.

So Dan Dare’s spaceship used dial and buttons and levers, the command structure of Space Fleet including the uniforms which  mimicked the armed forces and of course many of the expressions used were rooted in the language of the 1950s.

None of which should surprise us but allowed every nine year old to feel that this imaginary world was not so far off from their own everyday life.

Of course the Eagle was ruthless in its use of its name which was marketed for all sorts of types and products, but again there is nothing new there.

So that said I shall this evening retreat into that world of the Eagle Annual leaving the cares of the 21st century behind.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Eagle, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagle

Christmas with the Lion …………..

The comic annual has a long history.

They were produced for the Christmas market and were a mix of the favourite stories and articles drawn from the weekly comic.

For me, its golden age was in the 1950s, and the preeminent comic book was the Eagle, with its companions, Girl, Swift and Robin.

That said there were others, and of these I suppose I was most drawn to the Lion, which like its weekly comic version was a less sophisticated product than the Eagle.

The artwork was cruder, the size of the comic smaller and some of the stories lacked the detail of my Eagle.

But I never quite forgot the Lion, and yesterday three of the annuals were sent to me by Steve.

They are dated, 1954, 1955, and 1956, and of the three it is the last that struck me most because it was the one I was given.

Who gave me the book I can’t remember, but as Dad and mum always bought me the Eagle, I guess it was an uncle.

Looking through the 1956 annual, I recognize the stories and can vividly recall some of them, and more than a few of the individual pictures.

The key stories were those that would appeal to any 1950s lad, of which space, knights in armour and westerns predominated.

I must confess back then and even now I preferred the strip cartoons and avoided those stories which were all print.

Like Eagle, the Lion annual had a its share of factual material which in 1956 included “When the Romans went Chariot Racing, “Wonders of Outer Space”, and the “World Wide Quiz”.

But there was less of it than in Eagle, and the themes were far more Eurocentric.

Added to which the books felt cheaper, partly because of the poorer quality paper that was used.

There will be those who think I am being a tad unfair and flicking through the 1954 annual there was a fascinating account of what life on the Moon might be like, which makes interesting reading seventy-one years after it was written and just fifteen before the first moon landing.

And the three annuals are of their time, which rather makes them history books in their own right, and so I shall close with the "Picture Parade of Facts Near and Far", with the account of robot made by a boy in the USA and the one I vividly remember when during “a football match was in progress between two fire brigade teams at Liverpool, a cry of FIRE! Rang out.  The game stopped abruptly, and everyone looked for the fire.  It was in a player’s pocket, where a box of matches had burst into flame”.

Now that has to be very 1950s.

But having renewed an old acquitance, I happily turned to my old friend the Eagle, and spent an happy half hour.

Location; the 1950s










Pictures; from the covers of the Lion Annuals, 1954-1956 and the Eagle annual, 1956 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When a comic story holds more than a truth .............. stories from the Eagle

Now I have no recollection of post war rationing after all I was only four when it was finally abandoned.

But there will be plenty who not only remember it but will have stories of its impact on their daily lives.

Some of them will also have been regular readers of the Eagle comic which began in 1950 and continued into the following decade and here is the connection because running through several of the stories beginning with the first was how at a critical moment the Earth’s government was forced to introduce food rationing.*

Now even though I have read and re-read the stories countless times it never quite occurred to me that older readers of the Eagle would have vivid memories of both wartime and post war rationing.

That first Eagle story  was followed by the Red Moon Mystery when the planet was threatened by a rogue planet which had once destroyed all life on Mars and caused havoc before it was destroyed, which was repeated later by other stories which saw the earth’s population forced to be evacuated from their homes and ultimately  off the planet.

And when it wasn’t a natural disaster of sorts then there were always evil galactic nasties out on inter planetary domination of which the worst was the Mekon a not very nice dictator from Venus and his army of followers whose slavish devotion to their leader and ruthless behaviour would have been all too familiar to a generation that had been children during the last world war.

Of course such events are the stuff of good adventures and in slightly different forms will have appeared before and since but for those of us growing up in the 1950s they were pretty much a backdrop to the real thing.

Location; The 1950s

Pictures; from Eagle Comics in the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Venus Story, April 14, 1950 – September 28 1951

Stories of Easter ………..

I have always been fascinated by how comics have told stories of events from the past.

And that in part is due to the fact that I grew up in the 1950s with the Eagle, and its companion comics, Girl, Swift and Robin.

Together they presented young people with highly professional comics, which were well drawn, didn’t talk down to their readers and supplied a mix of entertainment and knowledge.

So, whether it was Dan Dare or the Four Mary’s, the stories produced by some of the best artists and story tellers were of the highest quality.

And along with factual cut away diagrams, and the tales of adventures, there would be biographical accounts which portrayed  living people as well as those from the past.

Given that this was the 1950s, they tended to be white, European, and in the case of the Eagle very male.

From what I know of the editorial policy of all four comics, I suspect that if they were still being published today they would reflect multi cultural Britain in their story lines, and in the individuals they featured.

But in 1950 and into the 60s, society and the media were slow to recognise the changes which were already underway.  These included  the Windrush, and those who arrived from different parts of Europe, after the war often from “displaced persons camps”, and a little later those from the sub continent.

Added to which there was that shocking collective amnesia which pretty much “forgot” the vital role that women played in fighting the war, whether it was in the services, in the factories or on the land.

I would be well into my teens before I fully appreciated what mother and other women did in the services, and later in war time factories, none of which appeared in the stories of heroic soldiers, sailors and airmen.

I wish it were otherwise but in 1960 it wasn’t, and that leads me to "The Road of Courge, The Story of Jesus of Nazareth", which appeared in the Eagle on the back page from March 1960 for 56 episodes, ending over Easter Week in 1961. 

It was drawn by Frank Hampson and it fitted well into the ethos of a comic which was the creation of the Rev Marcus Morris.

Not that I was particularly religious back then  and nor am I now.  But what I like about the comic strip is both its clear story line and above all the art work which at times has a feel of the cinema.

There will be those who criticise the portrayal of Jesus as heavily European which I would agree, and  perhaps sixty years on, if he were alive Mr. Hampson would draw him differently.

And that is about it.

Location, Easter

Pictures; from The Road of Courage, 1961, Frank Hampson 

Ilford ….. the film of choice

Now, when this advert came out in the Eagle comic in 1959, I wouldn’t have given it much thought.

I was just ten, and  the only camera we had was one of those old fashioned bellows ones, which opened out and I am not sure it was ever used.

Although having said that, we have plenty of snaps of us all in the old house in Peckham, so I guess someone used it.

A full twenty years later I had embarked on photography, and after one false start, fastened on the Pentax X 1000, which was the Morris Minor of cameras.  

Mine travelled across Europe, endured the heat of Athens and Paris, and the indifferent weather of Britain, and plenty of places in between, suffering knocks and more than a few damaging encounters with walls as well as one memorable fall down a hill side.

Along the way I got into developing and printing my own pictures before finally going digital.

During my smelly chemical photographic years I used Ilford films and so the Eagle advert strikes a chord.

I was vaguely aware of the connection with the place of the same name, and assumed the company had a history which I shan’t begin to visit, leaving you to follow the link to an interesting story of Ilford’s past.*

Leaving me just to quote from my Wikipedia that “the company was founded in 1879 by Alfred Hugh Harman as the Britannia Works Company. Initially making photographic plates, it grew to occupy a large site in the centre of Ilford”.*

I now prefer using a digital camera, but know plenty of people who still use smelly film, and while digital images are easier to manipulate, I fear they may do history a disservice, because many pictures taken on a modern camera or phone will never be printed off, and at best stay as an electronic version, stored privately and lost when the device becomes obsolete or is lost and damaged.

And so will never make their way into museums as a record of how we once lived.

Pictures; Picture; Be Snap Happy ….. Buy Ilford, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22, and two Pentax cameras, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* The History of Ilford Film, Analogue Wonderland, https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/blogs/film-photography-blog/the-history-of-ilford-film

**Ilford Photo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford_Photo

Moments in history ……….

Well perhaps a moment in my personal history.

It was May 13th 1955 when I came across Dan Dare and Eagle.

And the rest as they say was a journey which I share with many others who were born in the first half of the last century.

And my justification for featuring it ….. simply that I can.

Location; Childhood memories in 1955

Picture; cover of Eagle Vol 6 No. 19 May 13th 1955, and Modern Coal Mine

One exhibition ….. a spaceship ….. and my hero ….. at the Craft Centre

It will have been sometime in the early 1990s, or perhaps earlier, and I can’t quite now remember how I came across the Eagle exhibition at the Craft Centre on Oak Street.

It had originally be seen in Southport and landed in Manchester to the pleasure of heaps of those of us who remember Dan Dare, Luck of the Legion, and those wonderful cut away pictures of planes, ships, and locomotives.

For years the small A5 poster adorned a wall, having already suffered from several stains and even an attempt by one of the lads to make it into a paper dart.

And then like so many other silly bits that have caught my interest over the years it was stored away and only for me to rediscover it this morning.

At which point it could just have disappeared again, but where would the fun be in that?

Instead, I decided to indulge myself and perhaps all those other old buffers who paid their 4½d every Wednesday to roam across the pages of the Eagle, thrilling to the adventures of Dan Dare Pilot of the Future, the other comic strips and those cut away pictures.

Back in 1950, the Eagle was new, combining stirring stories with detailed and excellent art work along with news and factual articles which made ita cut above the other comics of the period.

Within a year it had three companion papers, aimed at girls and younger readers.*

Over the years I have written about all four and never tire of going back and writing more.**

At which point I could slide in to the story of the Craft Centre but you can find that at their site.***

So that is it.

Location Space

Pictures; poster advertising The Eagle Has Landed, circa early 1990 and Terra Nova, The Eagle, May 30, 1959, Vol 10, No 22, and The Red Moon Mystery , Eagle, January 11, 1952, Vol 2 No 40

*Eagle, Girl, Swift and Robin

**Comics of the 1950s, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=comics+of+the+1950s&updated-max=2023-03-19T03:30:00Z&max-results=20&start=18&by-date=false 

***Manchester Craft Centre, https://www.craftanddesign.com/about-us/

Down a coal mine in 1952 …………..

It will be 69 years since Master Chandler received his copy of Eagle, which that week contained a centre spread on “A Modern British Coal Mine”.

These centre spreads were a feature of the Eagle comic from its inception to the early 1960s when the cutaway diagrams were pushed to the back page.

But even then, they remained a fascinating glimpse into another world.

The ranges of pictures encompassed, motor cars, jet aircraft, ships, and pretty much anything which would appeal to a young school boy.

Not that it was a male preserve, because it appealed equally to plenty of girls whose sister paper Girl, rarely offered up anything similar.

And why shouldn’t they?

They were well drawn, and presented a lot of detail into the workings of what ever appeared in the comic that week.

And that is about it, other than to say back in 1952, I took the coal mine for granted, which of course is no longer the case.

So, what was modern has now become a bit of a history.


Location; 1952

Picture; A Modern British Coal Mine, Eagle January 11th, 1952, Vol 2 No 40

Silly History …..the series where you get to choose …… no.1 comics, films, and howlers

Now, there is always the danger that you can get too serious about the past and sometimes it is fun to take the silly approach.

Lt Hornblower in action

It started when a friend told me she had posed with one of those “plastic gladiators” who patrol the foot of the Colosseum in Rome looking for tourists and a few euros.

And that made me think of how history was treated in the comics and films of my youth.

Lt. Hornblower, R.N. was a fictional sailor who served in the Royal Navy during the long years of war with Republican and Napoleonic France.

He featured in the novels of C.S. Forrester, and while the Hornblower and many of his contemporaries were fictional, the books were grounded in historical accuracy.

But not so Olac the Gladiator who appeared in the Tiger comic from 1957 till 1969.

Olac had been a Celtic slave from Cumbria, who won his freedom after a life as a gladiator, and as Cumbrian gladiators do, he went on to loyally serve the Emperor through many stirring adventures.

All of which is fine, if a tad far featured, but almost believable, until that is we came across his friend Ulf, who was a Viking, which rather messes up the historical timeline.

But this cavalier approach to accuracy pales into insignificance, when put up against the story of a group of children in 1950s Britain on holiday in the north east who come across  an entire Romano British community still living along a stretch of Hadrian’s Wall.

I think the series ran in the Lion comic around the same time that Olac and Ulf  were having their stirring adventures.

David slaying Goliath

Of course, there were many successful portrayals of historical figures in comics like the Eagle, and in Look and Learn which was a weekly educational magazine for children.

One my favourites was the story from the Eagle of The Life of David, - the Shepherd King, which for a nine-year-old was far more exciting than learning about it  during scripture lessons.

It was well drawn, stuck to the line, and was totally believable, but for every David, there was a Olac, and with that in mind I shall put out the appeal for silly historical pictures, even sillier historical films, or follies which pretend to be what they aren’t.

Pictures; Lt. Hornblower, R.N., Eagle Comic, August 11, 1962, and David slaying Goliath with a slingshot, Eagle Comic, November 29th, 1958

"Give me deep space with the stars in my face where the planets and asteroids play" …..

For a decade and more, every Christmas, many of us born in the middle decades of the last century would spend many happy hours at Christmas reading the exploits of Dan Dare.

The stories appeared in the Eagle Annual, which was a spin off of the comic of the same name.

Dan Dare was a good hero, vanquished the evil and tyrannical figures across the Universe, but always did it fairly, never breaking his word, and by and large never killing his opponents.

Such was the comic world for boys and some girls in the 1950s.

There were other comics, and indeed other annuals, but Eagle and its companion comics Girl, Swift and Robin with their mix of adventure stories, information features and humour call up a gentler world.

Now I know it isn't Christmas but I liked the annuals, and still have them all from 1950 through to 1966.

And that is it.

Location; the 1950s

Pictures; Operation Moss and Space Race from the Eagle Annuals, 1950s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Johnny Haynes tells you ..... the topical advert

You will have to be a certain age to remember Johnny Haynes, or be familiar with Fulham FC.

On the other hand I doubt many will escape the topicality of a football advert like  this.

And for those who want more, he was an English association football player, making 56 appearances for his country including 22 as captain. 

"He was selected for 3 World Cup finals squads playing in the latter two of those. Nicknamed 'the Maestro', his attacking play was noted for two footed passing ability, vision and deftness of touch. Haynes is widely regarded as Fulham's greatest ever player remaining loyal there for 20 years despite coming no nearer to a major trophy win than two FA Cup semi-final appearances. 

Immediately following the abolition of the £20 maximum wage in 1961 he became the first player to be paid £100 a week. He also had a spell on loan with Toronto City in 1961 and ended his playing days at Durban City, winning there the only trophy he won in his football career".*

Picture;  Johnny Haynes tells you, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22 

*Johnny Haynes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Haynes 

The lost adverts ….Stephens ink 1959

I rather think you will have to have been born in the first half of the last century to remember Stephens ink.

And along with the ink, will be fountain pens, inkwells, and those school pens which were no more than a knib, attached to a handle, and had to be frequently dipped in the inkwell.

Which in turn will bring back floods of memories of the ink monitor, and ink stains on books and clothes, and of course ink pellets, which were made from chewed up bits of paper soaked in ink and flirted across the room with the help of a ruler.

Few at school aspired to a fountain pen, which was a neat contraption, allowing you suck the in up into a small tube.  

These were later replaced with ink cartridges, and did away with that powerful smell of ink which even now stays with me.

A world replaced by of biros and Word processed documents.

Location; the 1950s

Picture; Super Stephen, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22

Comics of the 1950s Part Two

“No man can have in his mind a conception of the future for the future is not yet. But of the conceptions of the past we make a future.” Thomas Hobbs

Which is a pretty neat way of summing up how comics like the Eagle described the future.

 In their flagship story featuring Dan Dare Pilot of the Future were accounts of how the future would play out sometime in the 1990s.

The vision was bold enough and the art work by Frank Hampson and his team both innovative and quite stunning, but the technology belonged to the late 1940s and ‘50s. So state of the art spaceships were operated by leavers and dials and uniforms of Space Fleet resembled those of the British armed forces circa 1950.

This was a Solar System where cold cruel dictators existed but were no match for the values, pluck and determination of the united peoples’ of Earth, and once defeated they too came to adopt our values and worked together to build a peaceful future.

It was a vision arising directly from the turmoil of the Second World War and incorporated the ideals of the newly formed United Nations Organisation.

And the great problems from famine to other natural as well as human made disasters could be solved without  resort to war and conquest.

Not a bad vision for the future.

Picture; from the front of the Eagle February 11 1952

Comics of the 1950s Part One

I still read the comics of my youth.

To the despair and puzzlement of my partner I have sought out and bought entire sets of the comics and comic annual books.

It is partly nostalgia but also they are themselves a wonderful history lesson.
From Rupert the Bear and Swift, through the Lion and the Tiger, to the Eagle, I adore them all.

 But I guess it must be the Eagle which I continue to be drawn to. It came out in 1950 and ran for the next decade and a half.

It attracted some of the best comic artists of the period, and attempted to provide a mix of boyish entertainment with a touch of learning.

In its pages could be found Dan Dare Pilot of the Future, Luck of the Legion, and Riders of the Range, along with detailed cut away pictures of aircraft, ships and locomotives and biographies of the great, the good and the brave.

It had been predicated on the idea that in the early 1950s there was a need for a good quality comic which did not rely on gratuitous violence and sought to offer a positive view of the world.

So Dan Dare had a code of behaviour which meant he never relied on the bad methods of his enemies, always treated them fairly when they had been defeated and never went back on his word. Old fashioned perhaps but not I think a bad code to live by. Here too were the career paths of ordinary people from the postman to the nurse, from the milkman to the fire fighter.

And here we have an entry into that world of the 1950s. Along with adverts for jobs in the armed services there was information “To Youngster’s looking for an opportunity ... in Mining”, the “Sribbler Ball Point” pen for 2/9d or the “BSA Golden Wings” cycle.

Picture: from the front page of the Eagle February 7 1959

The 1950s are back ………..at Southport ….. one to do

Now anyone who reads the blog will know that I regularly feature the Eagle which was my chosen comic when I was growing up.*

And not to shortchange its companion comics, there are stories about Girl, Robin and Swift, which together took the art and style of comics to a new level.

So, I was much pleased to hear that the Eagle Exhibition at The Atkinson Art Gallery in Southport which was originally planned to open in April but was postponed during the lockdown is back on.**

The Atkinson has reopened, and the Eagle exhibition will now run for a shortened period from 27th July until 5th September.

Slots have to be booked, a one-way system is in place, but there should be sufficient time for all those wishing to attend to do so.

Now that is grand news.

The Eagle was a new type of British comic, which was produced to a high standard, had some excellent stories with the most wonderful illustrations.

And each week presented us with a cutaway diagram in full colour of everything from an ocean-going liner to a London bus.

It was so successful that within a short period of its launch on April 16th, 1950, it was followed by its three companions, Girl, Swift and Robin, all of which maintained the same quality, and mix of stories, fine illustrations, and informative articles.

And this year it celebrates its 70th anniversary, which is bittersweet, given that I too have passed that into that momentous point in time.

To be accurate I got there a few months earlier and I would not discover my copy of Eagle until 1958, but once discovered I was a fan, continuing to read the comic each week, until sometime in 1963, when I reached that age when I put away childish things, embraced the idea of dates, music and fashion.

But I never quite lost my love of the Eagle and would find myself wishing I had kept my back copies, and wishing I could acquire some, which I finally began to do, buying them individually and then by volume, along with the Christmas Annuals, including those from before 1958.

So, with that said I shall just commend you all to the Eagle Exhibition at the Atkinson.

Location; The Atkinson Art Gallery in Southport

Pictures; covers from the continuing story, Terra Nova, The Eagle, May 30, 1959, Vol 10, No 22, and The Red Moon Mystery , Eagle, January 11, 1952, Vol 2 No 40, and poster for Eagle Exhibition, 2020

*The Eagle, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Eagle

*The Atkinson Art Gallery in Southport, https://www.theatkinson.co.uk/