Magazines

I think it was a Saturday morning, after getting my pocket money, that I would be straight down to the newsagent to get the latest issue of my favourite comics. I can’t remember there being a time when this didn’t happen. Indeed, the habit has continued to the present day even if the content of the magazines has changed from being strip cartoons to the mostly written word. And they are delivered to my house. And I don’t get pocket money.

There were comics before the 50s and 60s but I would say that this period was the highpoint of their popularity. The Dandy and The Beano had actually started in 1937 together with other children’s comics but paper and ink shortages during the War put paid to most of the others. So they were my introduction to this world. Both were published by DC Thomson in Dundee who went on to become the major player in the industry. At the height of their popularity the Dandy and Beano had sales of two million copies a week.

Characters from these comics became, and have remained, part of the British landscape. Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Beryl the Peril, Desperate Dan and his cow pie (I believe there is a statue to Dan in Dundee). And, of course, The Bash Street Kids.

I have to relate this story:

Leo Baxendale was born near Preston, his first job was as an artist for the Lancashire Evening Post. After reading a Dennis the Menace strip, Baxendale submitted a portfolio to the Beano and in 1953 he created Minnie the Minx. DC Thomson then wanted him to create a new strip based on a crowd of children pouring out of school.

Baxendale remembered walking along Fishergate in Preston and by the time he had arrived at his bus stop he had it all worked out. Yes, The Bash Street Kids were born just round the corner from me.

the Bash Street Kids pouring out of school

Incidentally, when he was persuaded to move to Dundee he imagined a life behind a desk in the offices of D C Thomson. The reality was that the staff would move all the desks to one side and play keepie uppie whilst ideas for the strip were literally kicked around and the Chief Sub-Editor took notes.

I should mention that the other big seller at the time was The Eagle but I never did find that to my taste and I can’t even remember reading it other than once or twice.

I should also mention that there was a flourishing market for girl’s comics at the same time. Titles such as Bunty and Judy. I used to enjoy reading my sister’s copies if they had stories about ponies.

As time passed I moved on to titles that I believe had a more formative role in my later reading tastes. All published by DC Thomson. Those Saturday mornings waiting for the latest issues of the Victor and the Hotspur and rushing home to find out what adventures Wilson the Wonder Athlete, Bernard Briggs, Gorgeous Gus, Sergeant Matt Braddock and of course Alf Tupper, Tough of the Track.

Whatever his job and wherever it was located, Alf was the eternal underdog. Regarded as a guttersnipe by the posh blokes from the Amateur Athletic Association, he was at his best the day after a night on late shift, lifting heavy objects and getting little sleep. His journey to the track (often White City) almost invariably involved falling asleep on the train and missing his stop.

Sometimes this was caused by skullduggery of the worst kind by stuck-up rich boys from a university somewhere, but usually it was because he could not stop himself from rescuing people in distress or just generally being a selfless chap. Regardless of this, he always got there in the nick of time and, having just finished his fish and chips, went on to win the championships or even break the world record for the mile and utter his famous catchphrase ‘I ran 'em all!’

Alf Tupper, tough of the track

Which brings me to the following poem by Adrian Hogan:

Heroes

The splat of The Rover on lino
- Thursday’s breakfast serials.
Eccentric, rebellious, lone
fighters of lost causes. Alf Tupper,
my favourite. All week I’d wonder,
had he run, plimmyless, belly full
of chips, toes in tatters, been spiked
in sight of glory by Chinless Charles
double-barrelled born to win?
Or had Alf run in hobnailed boots
after a rivetting forty hours straight
thrashing metal into shape
saving the gasworks, welding
machines to life with the flame
of his oxy-acetylene torch?
My dad was an Alf lacking
the gift of Bannister legs
and lungs. But would Tupper
have coped with a wife, six kids
and every day the same cliff-hanger?

Smiths Knoll Issue 10. 1995

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Heroes.

Heroes was a reasonably short running TV show I didn’t ever finish watching. It became, like Lost and 24, another terrestrial casualty- and once it had moved from the beeb, there was no way my old man would consider it a viable evening option. That said, the bits of the show that I did catch were pretty impressive. It probably all ended as a dream or something equally disappointing but, just for a minute, I am going to have a think about superpowers and poetry- my own little take on this week's theme. 

If I could be like the little Japanese man on the show and have a superpower, I would definitely try and work it to my advantage. There would be very little saving the world going on and a whole load of sitting invisibly in interesting people’s living rooms.

I have had the pleasure of being in the Lake District this weekend. We went up on Thursday night and since texting home to let them know we were safe, we’ve been cut off. At the time of writing I know no football scores, I know nothing of the news or this week’s talent show TV stars. I do know that I should be writing a shed load of ideas into poems though.

An interesting thing about a campsite is how up and down the noise levels can be. At night, you could assume that the noise would die off, maybe come back about 11 when the walkers drift in from the pub and then slowly, it will fade off again. What you never remember though is just how much voices can carry and, as I am not the quietest myself, it was a blessing to have a few hours after Lar had fallen asleep to just listen.

I am very much a night owl. I do my best writing in the evenings (out of habit, really) so to be in with the chance of listening in to the songs of the drunkards, watching three different figures move in and out of a 2 person pod (ooh-err) whilst all the time straining to hear just what the ‘girl [he] knew from Blackpool’ was like over the valley was great.

I’d love to be invisible if I could have any power. In my teens it had obvious appeal, in my early twenties it would have helped cheat exams and saved a hell of a lot of effort and now, just for a night or two, it has helped stoke up the campfire that is my imagination.

I’ve been in a place of literary heroes. I’ve sunbathed in Beatrix Potter’s back garden (not literally but what is forty yards), listened to Wordsworth’s hills and panted my way to all the inspired valleys and viewpoints within walking distance- all full of thoughtful sculptures and wow-bringing scenes.  I have been invisible, my superpower in a land of heroes and all that remains for me to do now is write everything up for my undercover report. Now, where did I pack that notebook…

Thanks for reading guys,
S

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