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.*

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

The card was last year's offering and l eagerly await the 2025 one.

Pictures; Christmas Card from the Eagle Society, 2024, and Operation Silence from the Eagle Annual, 1956.

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

Happy 70th ……. The Eagle comic 70 today

Turn away anyone not born between 1943 and 1959.

I say that only because you, dear reader, will never have experienced the joy and excitement of receiving the weekly copy of the Eagle.

It 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 week on this day 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 some time 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.

Along the way I discovered Eagle Times, which is the quarterly journal of the Eagle Society.*

At which point I fully admit that this is a bit of a nostalgic trip, but given that nostalgia is never what it’s cracked up to be, I have to say my 70 year old love affair with Eagle, is less about trying to capture my youth and more about what an excellent comic it was and the light it throws on the 1950s.

This was a decade of optimism when despite the shadow of the H bomb, science and technology promised to bring forth a new world on the back of rising prosperity.

And it is all there in the Eagle, from the rocket ships, and adventures across Space to the shaving mask and teleporter.

But look closely and almost all of the Eagle’s future was just a projection of the present, which Thomas Hobbs had offered up three centuries earlier when he said “No man can have in his mind a conception of the future for the future is not yet.  But of conceptions of the past, we make a future.”**

It starts with the technology.

Look at any science fiction film from the 1950s and while the rockets are there the mechanisms to control them are more often than not switches and dials.

And even when the writer makes that leap of imagination like the handheld communicator it is less a bold flight of fancy and more just a logical next step.

So happy birthday Eagle.

Pictures; from the Eagle 70 years 1950-1969, the Eagle Society, and Eagle February 11, 1952


*The Eagle Society, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagl

**Hobbs, Thomas, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, 1650

Any one born later than 1959 should turn away ..........

Now I know Christmas has arrived when my copy of the Eagle Times falls through the letter box.

Forget dressing the tree, wrapping the presents along with choosing what to do with the Christmas cards, and arguing over which compilation of Perry Como Sings Christmas to play, the news that the festive season has truly begun is that magazine.

It comes quarterly from the Eagle Society, and celebrates all things to do with the Eagle comic.

It began 30 years ago and I have been pretty much a member of the Society and reader of the journal from the beginning, missing one year because if forgot to pay the subscription and another during the mad inflation hike of the 1980s when economies had to be made.

It is a fascinating magazine which offers up not only the traditional fanzine material but articles about the 1950s and early 1960s when the comic was at its best.

The publication of Eagle was quickly followed by three companion papers, which were Girl, Swift and Robin and all four had their Christmas annual and spin off books all of which I have written about in the past.**

To read any one of the four is to be transported back to my childhood, and given that we still run open fires there is nothing better than sitting beside the flames on a winter’s afternoon as the light is fading and flipping the pages.

After sixty odd years of reading them I am well aware of what is coming but that doesn’t stop me.

So there you are ........ you were warned to turn away if Muffin the Mule, the Goons, and Sputnik are but just names.

But for those who remember listening to Sheep may Safely Graze on the big portable school radio, groaned at those little red and orange capsules you drank with your break time milk and watched the Potter’s Wheel and London to Brighton in five minutes, Eagle Times may just be for you.***

Location; 1950-61

Picture; cover from Eagle Times, Vol 30 No.4 Winter 2017

*Eagle Times; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Eagle+Times

**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/

The Eagle Society ................ a big bit of the 1950s and yours for a modest subscription

Now if you were born sometime between the middle of the 1940s into the late ‘50s there is every chance that you will have read the Eagle or its companion comics, Girl, Swift and Robin.

In many households the four were interchangeable.  I read the Eagle each week, looked at the Swift and Robin and shared the Girl with Jill who was older than me and not my sister but we have always thought of each other as brother and sister.

All four comics were the best of the best, and having got rid of mine as you do, I spent the late ‘80’s and early 90’s setting about starting the collection all over again.*

And along the way I discovered the Eagle Society.  I can’t remember exactly when I joined and have had short spells when I was not a member but for most of the last three decades I have paid my sub and received each quarter the Eagle Times.**

Every so often the magazine and the four comics have found their way on to the blog.

Some of those stories have explored that wonderful optimistic period that was the 1950s and others just celebrated the “four.”

And now the Eagle Society has reached its 30th birthday.

So if you are my generation then I can think of no better way to remember your youth than by joining the Eagle Society. The annual subscription, UK £27, overseas £38, and as a start you can visit the site at http://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Picture; cover of Eagle Times, Summer 2017

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

**The Eagle Society, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagl