A happy Christmas from the 1950s

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

But that is what l got today and 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.

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

A little bit of Christmas 1959 ............... with a thank you to the Eagle Times

Forget the sound of Christmas cards falling on the mat, the smell of warmed mince pies and the battle with choosing the right tree; I know it has all begun when the Eagle Times arrives.

For those of a certain age the Eagle and its companion comics, Girl, Swift and Robin were an essential part of growing up in the 1950s.

And if like me you have never lost the fascination for characters from their pages and still enjoy looking at cut away pictures of aeroplanes, steam locomotive and a London Routemaster then the Eagle Times is special.

It comes out quarterly, has been going for 28 years and is a celebration of that much loved comic.

But it is more than just a nostalgic recreation of a lost childhood which would be fun but with limited appeal.

Instead Eagle tTmes wanders across the 1950s with a mix of articles exploring the artists and writers who contributed to the Eagle and the bigger cultural themes of the decade.

Nor does it stop at 1959 but slips effortlessly forward and backward picking up on the story of the film industry, popular music, and much more.

So less a fanzine and more an insight intothe culture of the time when Dan Dare space hero of the Eagle along with Luck of the Legion and Harris Tweed sorted out the bad guys with stiff upper lip and a concern for decent behaviour.

That said I remain a sucker for the seasonal articles which this edition include ‘Christmas Annuals of the 1960’s’ and the connection between Dan Dare’s rocket ship and Meccano, but all of which begins with the cover adorned with holly, and a shed load of snow.

So there you have it, more than a little bit of Christmas past.

Pictures; cover of Eagle Times, vol 28 no 4 Autumn 2015 and centre page from Christmas Annuals of the 1960’s, Jon Johnson

* Eagle Times, Annual subscription UK £27, overseas £38, and as a start you can visit the site at http://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/

Discovering a little of our common past from the 1950s

Now there are plenty of ways of exploring the history of the 1950s and I do spend a fair amount of time looking back at that decade.

After all I was coming up to my tenth birthday as the decade closed.

All of which makes me one of those “baby boomers” who in the words of Polly Toynbee are a “favoured generation.”

We grew up in a period of mounting prosperity, confident that we would be looked after from “cradle to grave” and were free from the world wars and economic depression which had been the experience of our parents and grandparents who in turn were determined to make our lives safer than theirs had been.

And so years of that decade was on balance an optimistic time laying down much of the consumerism, and cultural excitement we attribute to the “swinging 60s.”

Of course as a child much of that passed me by but I had the Eagle Comic which its companions, Girl, Swift and Robin offered up both entertainment and a lot of information from cut out drawings of steam locomotives and aeroplanes to careers with the Coal Board and Covent Garden.

All of which leaves me nicely to Eagle Times which is a celebration of that comic and of the 1950s.*

It is a journal I keep coming back to because it contains articles pictures and references about what we kids read, did and bought and for that it’s a pretty neat bit of history.

The latest edition is out now and as they say is packed full of stuff and reminds me that

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!”**

Of course the downside is that I creak a lot and there are fewer years ahead than behind but like that optimistic decade I shall look forward and wait for the summer edition.***

Location; the 1950s

Pictures; cover of Eagle Times, Vol 29 nu 1, Spring 2016

*Eagle Times, http://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/

**French Revolution As it Appeared to Enthusiast at its Commencement, William Wordsworth, composed 1805, published 1809

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

Queen Tika, Gene Autry and a hidden city ............. memories of Saturday Morning Pictures

I remain fascinated how one image has stayed with me for over half a century and still has the power to take me back to a Saturday morning in the Peckham Odeon .

The Thunder Guard enter the secret rock

That said it could have been the  ABC on the Old Kent Road.

So distant is the memory that I can now no longer even locate the site of the two cinemas.

But the scene where two horsemen descend into an ancient city 20,000 feet underground whose residents abandoned the surface thousands of years ago has never left me.

Saturday Morn' at the Pictures

The city had a Queen and all the political and social structure of a pre industrial society but many of the trappings of the future.

So while Queen Tika is assisted by Lord Argo, and her soldiers ride on horses, there are robots and a sinister death chamber powered by electricity.

For years I pondered on those scenes and had begun to think it was all in my imagination.

But no they were real enough and part of Phantom Empire, which ran to12 episodes and was filmed in 1935 by Mascot Films.

And I have an article by James Howard in Eagle Times to thank for bringing that memory out into the sunlight.*

The film was “an amalgamation of science fiction, and the western genre” and starred Gene Autry one of the “singing cowboys.”**

The plot was convoluted, involving an evil Professor, his equally unpleasant gang and a plan to cheat Mr Autry out of his farm which stood on a deposit of radium.

Queen Tika, a robot and Lord Argo

And in to this already twisted tale is introduced the city of Murania which along with its robots and death chamber has a bunch of very advanced scientists and a machine which can restore life.

Queen Tika is unaware of a revolution planned by Lord Argo and a group who have been saved from the death chamber and is more concerned that the outside world will discover the city.

So to foil that discovery she sends her “Thunder Guard” to the surface to pretty much have a go at anyone they come into contact with including of course Mr Autry, who in turn breaks into the city and the rest as they say will be continued.***

Now until I read Mr Howard’s article I had no idea of the plot or that it ran to a full 12 episodes, and am tempted to buy the DVD if only to explore the extent that Hollywood tried to mix the Western with science fiction against a backdrop of revolution, robots and death chambers.

In the meantime it is reassuring that another of those child hood memories is rooted in reality, even if that reality was a tad far fetched.

All of which just leaves me to explore Mascot Films, and the actress Dorothy Christy who played Queen Tika.

Mascot Films was one of those small American film companies which specialised in making film series and B westerns and is notable for producing the first film serial to use sound.  This was the King of the Kongo in 1929.

The company was formed in 1927 and merged with several other companies to form Republic Pictures in 1935.

Ms Christy was born in 1906 and her film career lasted from 1929 till 1953 and so like Mascot Films covered one of the most important periods in the history of cinema.

All of which I had no idea of as I sat in that cinema just 50 or so years ago.

Such are the twists of history.

Pictures; from Saturday Morn’ at the Pictures, reproduced in Eagle Times, 2015

* Saturday Mornin’ at the Pictures, No 2 The Phantom Empire, James Howard, Eagle Times Vol 28 No 1 Spring 2015, http://eagle-times.blogspot.com/

**James Howard Ibid Saturday Morn’ at the Pictures

***The Phantom Empire is now available on DVD

A little bit of the 1950s with Eagle Times

Winter 2013

Now they say that nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, and they may have a point.

My friend Bernard is forever telling me that things were better when we were growing up in the 1950s.

He claims the summer’s were warmer, it always snowed on Christmas Day and Wagon Wheels were twice the size they are today.

I doubt any of the claims and have to concede that however pleasant my childhood there was a darker side to it.

That nasty war in Korea dragged on till I was four we grew up in the shadow of the “Bomb” and not all of my junior school teachers were nice to know.

That said I find myself wandering back into that decade more often than I used to.

Keen readers will have followed the Eagle posts which reflect on that comic and its place in my childhood.*

And so I am back with Eagle Times and the Eagle Society, which are ”dedicated to the memory of EAGLE - Britain's National Picture Strip Weekly - the leading Boy's magazine of the 1950s and 1960s.”**

Summer 2013

I have been a member since the late 1980s with the occasional lapse due to forgetting to pay the subscription.

My interest started as a bit of nostalgia mixed with a desire to meet people who were selling copies of the comic.

And I remain a an ardent reader, which long ago moved away from just celebrating te Eagle to exploring many aspects of the youth culture, which for a pretend historian like me adds much to what I know.

So that is it.  It just leaves me to direcdt you to the site.

Picture; Winter and Summer 2013 covers of Eagle Times.





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

**Eagle Times, http://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/