IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 44

Dan Dare has lent his name to a wide variety of merchandise over the years, with everything from pyjamas to tooth powder being licenced. However, there has never been a 'Dan Dare' beer until recently when Southport Brewery launched their 'EAGLE'S DARE' bronze bitter. I contacted the brewer, Paul Bardsley to enquire ask about it and he replied: 

"We started making it (using its current recipe) in July 2021 and since then have made an estimated 8000 litres of it.

The original recipe for it was shared with another beer we named 'Ruck & Maul' that we had created in partnership with the local rugby club. However, as the name is owned by Tatton Brewery, we were limited to selling it to the Southport area (with their permission). Using the alternate name of EAGLE'S DARE allowed it to be sold outside of our seaside town.

In July 2021, we made the decision to give Eagle's Dare its own recipe as it is, in my view, the best looking badge we have for our beers.

All our beers are Southport themed. As you well know, the Eagle has links with our town and we're very proud that is does so. There is an Eagle/Dan Dare display in the Atkinson (the local art centre) on the second floor which makes me childishly giddy every time I see it. I only got into it in the 90's when I was but a laddie up in Scotland but my boss (Boss Paul as opposed to Other/Scapegoat Paul who is currently writing this) used to nick the magazine from his older brother when he was a child, back in the 1960s.

The beer itself is a bronze bitter. It has a really powerful and satisfying bitter bite at the start and is followed with a dry, floral palate. It's a 'standard' bitter to our standards, although with considerably more hops than the 'standard bitters' that are touted by chain pubs. It's quickly achieved its own following locally which is really nice to see and makes us feel validated as brewers.

At the moment, it's currently available in cask only. Even worse, it's only available locally to us as we are a small brewery and our range is limited. Best place to find it is either The Waterpudlian in Waterloo/Crosby, or The Guesthouse in Southport. Unfortunately, we have no control as to when it goes on asides from delivering the beer.

We do also offer it in 5 litre (9 pints) cans when we make a batch. Only while stock lasts but it's semi-permanent. If it's out of stock, it's usually only for a couple of weeks before we can make a fresh batch. Available from our online shop or, if you're in Southport, Portland Wines on Portland Street (though you can always come by and get one from us too)".

PLEASE NOTE - OUR NEW SUBSCRIPTION ADDRESS

 Our subscription address has now changed. Our secretary has moved to Wales and the new details are on the right. 

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 43

Superheroes in comics often have secret identities and while the original EAGLE's heroes had no need for them, some of their creators certainly used false names. Between 1950 and March 1962, EAGLE printed writer and artist credits on most strips, text stories and articles, but several contributors used pen names for their work. Geoffrey Bond wrote 'Luck of the Legion' using his own name, but wrote the back page biographies of Baden Powell and Abraham Lincoln as Alan Jason. Alan Stranks wrote 'PC 49's adventures as himself, but wrote the short 'Marvell of M.I.5' series as David Cameron. The screenwriter Guy Morgan didn't use his own name at all in EAGLE, writing 'Storm Nelson' as Edward Trice. Likewise, the television and film writer Leonard Fincham wrote 'Danger Unlimited' as Steve Alen and several text serials, including the 'Special Agent' series about Inspector Jean Collet of Interpol as Lee Mayne. He later developed this into a TV series called Interpol Calling, although he created new stories and changed the names of the heroes to avoid copyright issues. Another television writer, Basil Dawson, wrote part of the 'Dan Dare' story 'Operation Saturn' as Don Riley, but he wrote the novel Dan Dare on Mars using his own name. Francis Dickson wrote several books and three back page biographies for EAGLE as R.B. Saxe and J.H.G. Freeman, usually known as Don Freeman, wrote several books as well, as 'Knights of the Road' for EAGLE as Gordon Grinstead. The celebrated science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke had a short story 'The Fires Within' published in an early issue of EAGLE under the pen name of Charles Willis, which he used for several short stories at the time and Clifford Makins, who succeeded Marcus Morris as editor of EAGLE, wrote the back page biography of Nelson as Christopher Keyes. An EAGLE artist who used another name was Bruno Kleinzeller, who escaped from Czechoslovakia shortly before the Nazis invaded and subsequently used the name Peter Kay for his work in Britain, which included 'drop in' illustrations for the text stories of 'The Three 'J's' in EAGLE as well as several strips for Girl.   

The contributors had different reasons for using pseudonyms but none were for tax evasion or anything else illegal. The real writers have often been identified through surviving payment details which clearly record their true identities. As a contributor to the Daily Mirror, J.H.G. Freeman used 'Gordon Grinstead' for his other work. Geoffrey Bond used 'Alan Jason' to avoid having two strips appearing in EAGLE at the same time using the same name and Francis Dickson used 'R.B. Saxe' for all his writing. However, in the 1960s when EAGLE was produced by Odhams, there was a company rule that editorial staff should not be paid for any scriptwriting they did, leading to several staff being paid through agents when they were called upon to write stories. While writers and artists were no longer credited in the weekly, records of payment were obviously kept and could have revealed staff breaking company rules, so agents were used and named on the records.