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 

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.

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/

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 sixty five 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

I have seen the future …… and its not that different from 1960 ……… stories from Dan Dare

Now I am a child of the 1950s.

Page 1

I may have grown into a teenager and left school in the 60s, but my formative years were set in the decade before, when the country was coming out of rationing, television was still for a few and bombsites vied with parks as places to play.

And for  my generation …. both boy and girl, Christmas meant a comic annual.

Page 2

Mine was and remained the Eagle.

The comic had first appeared in 1950, and its first companion annual was published in 1951.

Each annual was a mix of articles, hobby activities and stories, with a fair share of those stories turned over to picture strips featuring characters from the comic.

And foremost amongst the heroes was Dan Dare.

I can’t remember when I got my first annual, but it will have been around 1957, and from then on till I “put away such things” six years later the books were always part of my Christmas.

Dan Dare in the Vanishing Scientists was from vol 9 which was published in 1960, and told the story of Strombold “a renegade scientist” who has kidnapped a group of fellow scientists to use them to attack Earth.

Of course, he is defeated, but not before we have been given a glimpse of how the author thought the future would be like.

Page 8

And not unsurprisingly amongst all the rockets, and advanced technology, there was much that was just 1950s Britain, including a “midnight feast” by students at Astral College, and a  professor dressed in gown and hat.

But above all it was that good triumphed over bad, and criminals were defeated, prompting Sir Hubert Guest, head of Space Fleet to comment  that men like Strombold “try to make science work for their own power instead of humanity – and that will never do!”

And you can’t say fairer than that.

Location; the Future

Pictures; from Dan Dare in the Vanishing Scientists, Eagle Annual 9, 1960

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

All that was decent and safe in 1962 ........ the advert

Now we tend to think of advertisng in the past as a gentler form of selling us stuff.

But not so.

Looking at this 1962 advert, it pulls no punches in its determination to sell the raincoat.

It was published in the Eagle Comic in 1962 and was one of a number aimed at the readeship which was boys between the ages of seven to about fourteen.

In this particular edition there were also adverts for Sugar Puffs, a Sturnley Archer bicycle set of gears, Beech-Nut chewing gum and the Wiggli Ball from Weetabix.

In addition Wall’s Ice Cream were selling the “exciting Big Chief Moccasins” which came in kit form and cost just under six shillings, which you could get by sending the money with “any two Wall’s Ice Cream wrappers”.

And to complete the adverts, Shreeded Wheat were giving away “Free Champions of Sport Giant Colour Picture Cards”.

Most of the adverts were from food companies, of which three sold breakfast cereals.

But it is that raincoat ad which I like the best.

Adverts in the comic were often delivered in the form of a strip cartoon with a story so here the two children, go off to the fair, wearing their coats, which was very sensible, spend all their money, including their bus fare and walk home in the cold and the rain.

But they “were not cold”, because “We’ve got our Robert Hirst Raincoats on”.

And to reinforce the ad there was the message that “A Robert Hirst keeps you cosy and dry always – and each coat has a secret safety pocket for boys or a penny safe purse for girls ...... even a fleecy buttin-warmer if you want it”.

Concluding with “Ask mummy to let you see some in the shops” and mindful of being a responisble businesses added “And remember-always keep some money in case of emergencies”.

I went looking for the firm of Robert Hirst and found a listing and an reference to them in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre for 1960-62, but no indication of what it was.

So I shall go looking for that too.

Location; 1962

Picture advert from the Eagle Comic, August 11, 1962 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Mr. Therm .... a story of gas ........ and the Eagle Comic

Now, if you are old enough to have worn a balaclava, thrilled to the first episode of Ready Steady Go, and felt the light had gone out of the world on hearing the news of the death of Otis Reading and Dr. King, then like as not Mr. Therm will have been a familiar figure.

And for those who don’t, he was the marketing face of the gas industry, having first appeared in 1931, from the Publicity Department of the Gas Light and Coke Company, he went on to be adopted by other companies, and survived nationalization of the industry, only slowing fading away in the 1970s.

I remember him best from the Eagle comic where he often appeared, in adverts like this one.

Back then Mr. Therm would pretty much be the last thing I read, long after Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, the cutaway feature and a host of other exciting stories and was more an afterthought.

Today we assume that the 1950s and early 60s were a more innocent age, and yet continued in its 20 pages the Eagle would have as many as 20 adverts, ranging from small ones to those that took up a full page.

Along with adverts for toys, and plastic model kits, there were those for bubble gum, fountain pens, as well as sweet, books and careers with the armed forces.

And taking centre stage would the breakfast cereals, usually accompanied by a free gift.

So, on September 20th, 1958, Corn Flakes was offering a free plastic spinning top, while Shreddies, went one better with a full page spread announcing “Free!  20 models of amazing Prehistoric Monster”.

Leaving Mr. Therm to compete with Tommy Walls who got into all sorts of scrapes but always came out on top with a Wall’s ice cream.

I had almost forgotten Mr. Therm with his old-fashioned gas meter, but happily have been reunited with him as I once again read through my old copies of Eagle.

Location; the 1950s

Pictures, from Eagle Comic, May 30th, 1959, Vol. 10 No.20

Flying high with BEA ………….. in 1953

Now you have to be a certain age to remember the airline, BEA, or its companion BOAC.

British European Airways was created in 1946, and served Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and was also the largest domestic carrier while British Overseas Airways Corporation, flew services to the rest of the world.

All of which is a lead into the Eagle Book of Aircraft written by John W.R. Taylor in 1953 which in three sections and 170 pages told the story of flight from the earliest attempts to what passed for state-of-the-art aircraft in the early 1950s.

The book was part of the Eagle series, released at Christmas, and sat alongside the Eagle Annual, and other specials featuring characters from the Eagle comic.

I was too young to be given the book as a present, and within a few years if I had been asked to choose between its successor, or others which included Ships and Boats, or Police and Detection, I would always have gone for the Eagle Annual.

So, a full 67 years after The Eagle Book of Aircraft was published I acquired a copy.

It is a little tired at the edges, but it remains a fascinating piece of history, because of course with the passage of over half a century that is what it has become.

Of course it can be read as a straight account of both civilian and military aeroplanes, but its real magic is capturing that world we have lost, when travelling by air was still very much the preserve of the rich, and when even relatively small firms could design, build and market aircraft.

And so for many of its readers the book will have exceled when it described in pictures and words the everyday work of BEA and BOAC, like the story of the flight from London to Brussels.

Back then it started with buying a ticket at the airline’s office, before boarding a bus to the airport, followed by checking in the luggage, passport control, “light refreshment – all part of the service”, and the arrival at Brussels.

In one sense there is nothing odd, about the details of the trip, other than that few people in 1953 would have experienced such a flight.

Indeed, I would be 31 before I took my first flight and dad who spent his entire working career driving across mainland Europe would be 59 before he took his one and only trip in the air.

So, that is it.  I shall go off and read some more from 1953, and in particular look closely at the cutaway pictures of aircraft, each of which offered up detailed descriptions of the parts of the plane.  These were a feature of the Eagle comic, and proved very popular.

Pictures;, all taken from the Eagle Book of Aircraft, 1953

* Eagle Book of Aircraft, 1953, John W.R. Taylor

Travels across the Universe with a good guy .......... Dan Dare Pilot of the Future with that gentle optimism that was the 1950s

Now you can either face the world with the simple philosophy that the bottle is always half full or retreat into a dismal dark place, where it is always half empty, the sun never shines and the number 86 will always be late.

Of course in the real world there are plenty of awful things which no matter how many half full bottles you have they will never make it any better.

But the optimist in me always wins through and it is how I like my science fiction.

I have never been one for the disaster movie, the bug eyed monster or the evil supernatural beings, and I think that must be in part because I grew up with the Eagle Comic and in particular the exploits of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future.

He was simply the best.

A clean cut brave chap who put loyalty and truth and fair play above all else and when faced with evil dealt with it in an honourable way.

Today those attributes wouldn’t count for much in many films but back in the 1950s with the backdrop of the Second World War that sort of hero could still be presented to young boys who lapped it up.

Dan Dare was the chief Space Pilot of Space Fleet, had been born in Manchester in 1967 and in his travels across space encountered a whole range of people most of whom shared his belief that peace and co-operation were better ways of doing things.

Of course he encountered the not so nice aliens but even these could be won over and usually their defeat was at the hands of a mixed bag of races from across the Galaxy.

He was created by Frank Hampson and appeared in the Eagle Comic from 1950 into the 1960s.

And while the world Mr Hampson created looks decidedly old fashioned today it was one that fitted that post war period of optimism and filled me with that simple belief that no matter what planet you were from or what you looked like you were bound to be decent, trustworthy and above all much the same as the people of Earth, which was and is a fine start to the day.

Nor is that all for I should have added that these models were made by Howard Love who like me has a long held fashion for all things Eagle.

His wife Ann, "Howard made them a few years ago from clay, air dried and painted.  He remembers getting the first magazine, and it was by copying the drawings of Frank Hampson that he became interested in drawing. this lead him into studying Art at College, and working in a design studio, before going into teaching"

Now you can't saying fairer than that, .......... not only did Dan Dare save the world umpteen times but set Howard off on his successful artistic career

Pictures; models of some of the people featured in the Dan Dare stories, courtesy of Howard Love.

Making history of the future...

“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.”*

I often come back to what Thomas Hobbs said whenever I indulge my interest in science fiction because most of it is rooted in the present no matter how fantastical it might appear which makes the science fiction of the past a wonderful way of looking at the period it was produced.

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 hand held communicator it is less a bold flight of fancy and more just a logical next step.

So to with the futurestic transport networks which whizzed people above the streets in slim slender tubes of plastic and glass.

Leave out tubes of plastic and glass and substitute steel and iron viaducts and you have New York’s elevated railway which opened in 1868 using cable power and later steam locomotives transporting New Yorkers on tracks which ran almost three stories above the city streets.

In much the same way the stories often reflect the issues of the day.  In The Shape of Things to Come written in 1933 H.G. Wells projected the horror and destruction of the Great War into a future conflict between two unnamed countries which lasts a decade leading  to a major economic crisis,  global chaos, and the collapse of most governments and a devastating  plague which almost eliminates humanity.

The situation is saved by a benevolent dictatorship which in turn after a century of reconstruction is overthrown in a bloodless coup leading eventually to a withering away of the state and a society which has the material means to provide for all enabling the population  to concentrate on bettering itself.

It is a story that brings together so much of the political and social history of the 19th and 20th centuries as does another favourite of mine which is Star Trek.

The orginial  was a television series running in the late 60s it caught for me something of the excitement and optimism of the period.

Now I am the first to admit that  the period was not all good. The bright new decade full of promise has to be set against the Cold War, some pretty nasty conflicts around the world and that nagging thought that the millions spent on the “space race” could have been devoted to solving the issues of world hunger, drought and poverty.

But in its way the continuing story of Star Trek has done something to challenge the darker side of the mid 20th century.

It was set three hundred years into the future and like Well's future  all the material needs of humanity had been met and individuals were free to pursue their interests “in a quest to better themselves.”

So the Starship Enterprise was a vessel of exploration whose five year mission was about “exploring strange new worlds” meeting new races and contributing to the sum total of knowledge.

And in that respect the very fact that the space craft’s were referred to as ships and the crew took on a naval character underlined the theme of exploration.

But like all science fiction Star Trek was as much a comment on the 1960s as it was a vision of the future.

And so the themes of the television series featured racial intolerance, the conflicts between super powers and that still very relevant conundrum of non interference with other peoples and cultures.

All of which could lead to real controversy like the moment Captain Kirk kissed Lieutenant Uhura cited as the first interracial kiss on US television which also led to the episode being withdrawn by networks in the southern states.

But even so the programme never quite broke from the fact that it was a US production and when the Cold War was still very dangerous.

So depsite the Prime Directive of Non Interference there were plenty of times when the principle  was broken.

Often this happened with   the appearance of the other galactic super power in the form of the Klingons which resulted in a necessary battle to save a planet from being conquered by the totalitarian and militaristic Klingon Empire.

And it had all been done before by Dan Dare Pilot of the Future in the Eagle Comic.**

He is someone I have written about already, and in the pages of the Eagle you can see much of Britain’s post war history reproduced.  Space Fleet’s Uniforms are those of the RAF, the United Nations is the sovereign global authority and aliens are by and large friendly.

A few of course pose problems.  The Treens from Venus with their belief in pure science and their ruthless dictator are committed to planetary domination, but they are defeated and beaten fairly and squarely with Dan and his pals always playing the straight bat and never resorting to under hand methods.

It is a world I can still recognise from my childhood and one I can still relate to. So in that respect I guess I continue to live my childhood and a bit of my past as I boldly go where many have gone before me.

Pictures; from the Eagle Comic collection of Andrew Simpson

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

**Dan Dare,
 http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Dan%20Dare

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

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