Another Christmas and another planet for Dan Dare and Digby. The fourth Christmas issue of EAGLE was dated 24th December 1953 (Vol. 4 No.38) and Dan was now on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, investigating the source of missiles that were being fired at Earth. Despite being a continuing story, the strip managed to acknowledge Christmas in a big way as Digby explained the significance of the feast to a young Saturnian boy, while the strip showed images of Spacefleet personnel celebrating back on Earth.
The EAGLE logo has a special Christmas design, with the usual white letters coloured yellow and decorated with snow. The red block title box includes several sparkling stars and the top left hand corner of the page features bells and holly, while the top right hand corner features holly. Across the top of the page is the greeting 'Happy Christmas to EAGLE readers'. The 'Dan Dare' adventure continues on page two with Spacefleet staff on Earth drinking to 'absent friends', referring to Dan and his crew and the story picks up from there, with Dan continuing his adventure on Titan. The art on the 'Dan Dare' strip is by Desmond Walduck. At this point in the story the writer was Basil Dawson, who was credited in just one episode and under the nom de plume of 'Don Riley'. Dawson, who wrote many radio and television adventure stories, including some Dick Barton - Special Agent serials took over the writing when Dan's creator Frank Hampson fell ill. Dawson would write the novel Dan Dare On Mars in 1956. 'Dan Dare'
Page three is occupied by the final episode of the 'PC 49' adventure 'The Case of the Magnificent Mouse' and Christmas is celebrated at the end of the episode where 49 and his Boys' Club celebrate the end of the adventure at their Christmas party. The strip was written by Alan Stranks and drawn by John Worsley. The next pages and a quarter are occupied by an article by EAGLE's 'Special Investigator' Macdonald Hastings and his piece has a definite Christmas theme, for it is about reindeer. Hastings visited a Laplander living near Aviemore in Scotland, who owned a herd of reindeer he had brought from Lapland to see if they would thrive in Scotland. It is clear from the article that there were very few reindeer in Britain in 1953 and indeed it is implied that this herd were the only ones. There are significantly more now. The lower quarter of page four is an advertisement for Calvert's 'Dan Dare' Toothpowder, with all the focus being on the free 'Dan Dare' picture cards with each carton and the free 'Dan Dare' picture card album that can be obtained by sending the empty carton back to the manufacturers. This advert is a clear reminder of how popular Dan Dare was in the 1950s. Page five also contains a few Christmas tricks and puzzles from Richard Murdoch, which occupies the top right hand corner of the page. Murdoch was a popular radio and film comedy actor, who made regular short contributions, such as jokes and puzzles to EAGLE at this time. The bottom half of page four is split between two advertisements. One is for Sharp's Toffee. No problems there. The other is baffling. It is for something called 'The Free Enterprise Campaign' and the advert is fronted by Donald Peers, who was a popular singer at the time. Basically it encourages readers to work hard because where there's free enterprise there's opportunity. It might be Government sponsored, but it seems to be aimed more at adults in the workplace than children and teenagers, although many young people did start work at fourteen in the early fifties. I have reprinted it here. See what you make of it.
The top half of page five is the Sports section and features short articles by
EAGLE's regular sports contributors on their 'Thrill of the Year'. The cricket writer Patsy Hendren wrote about a County match that resulted in a rare dead heat. Geoff Paish wrote about a Wimbledon tennis marathon game. R.M. Samuel wrote about Norman Parker's final speedway ride and James Audsley wrote about an endurance run from Bath to London. Christmas was referenced in a simple greeting to readers below the articles. The bottom half of the page featured the comedy strip 'Professor Puff and His Dog Wuff' and in this episode the Professor helps Father Christmas to deliver presents. The strip was by David Langdon.
Page seven was the colour 'Riders of the Range' page and marked the first episode of a new serial 'Jeff Arnold and the Arizona Kid.' For once, Christmas is also included in the strip as Jeff and Luke enter a saloon on Christmas Eve and it is decorated with banners and paper chains. The strip was written by Charles Chilton as usual and was illustrated by Frank Humphris, who was now the regular artist and would remain so till it ended more than eight years later.
On the top half of page eight and nine is the weekly cutaway drawing and as in every Christmas issue it has a festive theme. A series of labelled pictures, including some with cutaways show how Christmas telegram greetings were sent round the world. The drawings were by Leslie Ashwell Wood who was the principal cutaway artist throughout EAGLE's nineteen year run. The bottom half of the page marked the start of a new 'Luck of the Legion' adventure 'The Secret City'. Set in Indo-China, there is no mention of Christmas as the story gets off to an exciting start as Sergeant Luck leads a patrol back to the Legion Post to find that it is under attack. Geoffrey Bond wrote the strip, which was illustrated by Martin Aitchison, who drew every single episode of every 'Luck of the Legion' adventure, from its start in 1952 to its end in 1961.
Page ten is also divided into two parts. The top half is a strip in the series 'Great Escapes' and is about King Charles II's escape from the Parliamentarians during the Civil War. It was written by Guy Morgan, who also wrote EAGLE's 'Storm Nelson' strip as Edward Trice and drawn by Pat Nevin. It does not concern Christmas. However, the lower half of the page is an episode in the series 'These Men Live Dangerously', which features coal miners in this issue and does mention Christmas as it reminds readers that without coal there would be no cosy fire at Christmas or power to cook the turkey and Christmas pudding. A large frame in the strip shows a family opening their Christmas presents round the fire. This strip was drawn by Dudley Pout.
Page eleven is the Editor's page and in the top left hand corner is his letter to readers. Marcus Morris wrote about Christmas being a time for family gatherings, but acknowledged and greeted the readers who were in hospital or orphanages. In 1953 there were many orphanages. He reminded readers that Christmas marks Jesus' birth and involves giving as well as receiving. To the right of his letter is a Christmas competition with a prize of a bicycle and Christmas greetings from Frank Hampson, Michael Gibson the Art editor. Ellen Vincent the assistant editor and Morris himself. Small photographs of the four accompany the greeting. Below Morris' letter are four 'Readers' Letters'. Three do not relate to Christmas, but one from Alfred Robinson of Ilford suggested using the recent 'Whodunnit' series as competitions at parties. Morris thought this was an excellent idea and suggested using the 'What's His Name?' strip as well. Alongside the readers' letters is a poem 'Christmas Thoughts for a Boy', which was not credited, but was probably written by a staff member. It is strongly religious, commenting on Christ's crucifixion as well as his birth. This page makes EAGLE's Christian philosophy clear and emphasises the religious significance of Christmas. The bottom of the page features the weekly three picture 'Chicko' strip by Norman Thelwell and EAGLE Club News, which offers gifts to club members whose birthdays fall on six specific dates from across the year listed above the text. As usual 'Chicko' has a Christmas theme.
Page twelve features a text serial about 'The Three 'J's'. This school based series began in January 1953 and would run until April 1959. It was written by Peter Ling, who would go on to create the TV soap operas
Compact and
Crossroads with Hazel Adair and write the
Doctor Who serial 'The Mind Robber'. While this story was set in the Christmas holidays, the episode focuses on a school football match and Christmas is not otherwise featured. The 'drop in' illustrations are by Dudley Pout. In the bottom right hand corner of this page is an '
EAGLE Window' which suggests various
EAGLE related products that readers might like to buy if they have been given money for Christmas. In the issues leading up to Christmas,
EAGLE heavily advertised potential presents by carrying a weekly four page advertising section, including many directly related to its own characters, particularly 'Dan Dare' and 'Riders of the Range'. However, the Christmas issue itself was too late for boys asking relatives for presents, which enabled
EAGLE to focus on the 'giving' aspect of the feast, without being swamped by the 'receiving', highlighted by the advertising.
Page thirteen contains a half page 'Harris Tweed, Extra Special Agent' comedy strip by John Ryan, which is set on Christmas Day. The mean spirited Tweed has not bought a turkey as he will be dining with Lord Snoot later, meaning that 'the boy' must go without. The opening frame shows the pair eating boiled eggs. But as usual, matters end in the boy's favour as he wins a lavish Christmas dinner which he shares with his friends, while Tweed has to act as waiter. The full page 'Tweed' stories ended in 1953, but the strip continued as a half page until 1962, when it ended. This was certainly a loss for EAGLE as the full page stories had been exciting and funny. While the half page included many serial stories, it was never as good. There was usually only room for one joke. By now, John Ryan was also producing a half page 'Lettice' strip for Girl, EAGLE's companion weekly and the demands of producing a whole page comedy adventure with five lines of detailed drawings were considerable. The bottom half of page thirteen contained adverts for Cadbury's Chocolate, Blue Bird Toffees and Odol solid toothpaste. EAGLE had no qualms about advertising rival products in the same issue! The Odol adverts included brief true stories about stamps and free foreign and colonial stamps were given away with each tin. This would clearly attract stamp collectors, but would most EAGLE readers be more attracted to the 'Dan Dare' picture cards being given away by Calvert's Tooth Powder, advertised a few pages earlier?
On page fourteen 'Storm Nelson - Sea Adventurer' continued his first adventure, which had begun in October. This strip was written by Guy Morgan (as Edward Trice) and drawn by Richard Jennings. Morgan was a successful screenwriter, whose credits then included The Captive Heart, based on his own novel and Albert R.N. Both these films were about prisoners of war and Morgan himself had been a prisoner of the Germans in the Second World War. Albert R.N. was actually based on the experiences of the 'PC 49' artist John Worsley, who as a prisoner of war actually made the 'Albert' dummy to fool his German captors. Storm Nelson owned a large yacht, a helicopter and a submarine which he utilised in the cause of justice. With the story being halfway through, there was no reference to Christmas in the strip itself, but there is a Christmas greeting alongside the strip's title.
Page fifteen usually housed the 'Tommy Walls' serials, sponsored by Wall's Ice Cream, but in this issue, which was between adventures, Tommy presented a 'Christmas Page', with games and puzzles to use at parties. The illustrations here are by Richard Jennings, who was the regular artist on 'Tommy Walls' before taking on 'Storm Nelson'.
The final page (sixteen) features the latest episode of 'Alfred the Great', a serial about the life of the famous Saxon King. Written by Chad Varah and illustrated by Norman Williams, it does not reference Christmas. In previous years, the back page biographies had always managed to contrive a reference to the occasion, but this serial was well into Alfred's story and a Christmas reference would not have fitted. The issue acknowledged the feast in so many other ways, that there was no need to mention it here.
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