THE FOURTH CHRISTMAS EAGLE by John Culshaw

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.   

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 page 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.    

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS EAGLE by John Culshaw

Not surprisingly, EAGLE always celebrated Christmas and particularly so in the 1950s when it was edited by the Rev. Marcus Morris. The very first Christmas EAGLE set an impressive precedent, with the front page bordered with holly and the action in Dan Dare's long running Venus saga taking a short break as the characters aboard the Ranger spaceship reflected on the fact that it was Christmas, which led into scenes back home on Earth. The strip, produced by Frank Hampson and his studio team, continued on page two where Sir Hubert Guest, Digby and Professor Peabody also reflected on Christmas back home, despite the fact that they were prisoners of the Mekon. The episode ended with Dan himself in the land of the friendly Therons, planning a rescue mission.   

Inside the issue, PC 49 continued his adventures on page three and made no mention of the season as it would have clashed with the storyline, where 'Fortynine' is on the trail of a dangerous gang who have killed a fellow officer. PC 49 originated as a weekly radio series by Alan Stranks, who also wrote the EAGLE strip, which was then drawn by Strom Gould and would later be drawn by John Worsley, who took over in August 1951 and drew the strip until it ended in March 1957. On pages four and five, the text serial Thunder Reef , about smuggling on the Brittany coast, written by Adrian Seligman continued and again, not surprisingly, there was no mention of Christmas. The 'drop in' illustrations for this story were by John Worsley. Page six was divided into a half page Football Hints strip by Billy Wright, the England captain, which focussed on proper maintenance of kit and two short features on collecting. The first provided ideas for making scrap books and the other was for stamp collectors, with neither relating to Christmas. 

The colour page seven marked the very first episode of Riders of the Range, from the popular radio serials by Charles Chilton. Although Christmas played no part in Jeff Arnold's first episode, his arrival in EAGLE was quite special. The strip would run for more than eleven years. The first episode was drawn by Jack Daniel, who would illustrate the first two adventures before Angus Scott took over for the next three until Frank Humphris became the regular artist from 1952 to the strip's end in 1962, later illustrating Blackbow the Cheyenne until EAGLE's merger with Lion in 1969. The cutaway drawing on the top half of the centre spread was of the underground railway operated by the Post Office to carry mail between Paddington and Whitechapel, with the text emphasising the Christmas mail. The cutaway was drawn by Leslie Ashwell-Wood, who was the most prolific of EAGLE's cutaway artists. On the bottom half of the centrespread was an imported French strip called Skippy the Kangaroo, which had no connection with the later Australian TV series. This Skippy, drawn in a basic cartoon style, was a continuing story and did not relate to Christmas. It was credited to Danay, Dubriscay and Genestre and described as an Andre Sarrut production, which seems like a lot of people to produce such a simple strip, but this team were then in the process of making a cartoon feature film in France based on a Hans Anderson story, with the hope of building up a cartoon film studio to rival Disney. Unfortunately problems beset the company and while the film was shown unofficially against the director Paul Grimault's wishes in 1952, disagreements between Sarrut and Grimault resulted in it not being released properly until 1980! Consequently it never had the opportunity to succeed. Possibly Skippy was to have been their next film project. 

On the next page (ten) also in colour, two half page strips told the story of the Glastonbury thorn bush which reputedly flowers on Christmas Day and the origin of the Christmas tree, which was brought by Prince Albert from Germany, but was actually originated by an English missionary St. Winfred (also known as St. Boniface). Page eleven included the Editor's letter to readers and Marcus Morris used it to wish them a happy Christmas. He apologised that the issue was unable to provide more pages than the usual sixteen, writing that paper was still very scarce and continuing: 

"..but we have done what we can to give it a Christmassy look and to include a number of features telling you about Christmas traditions and customs. Most important of all, you will find on the back page the reason why we keep Christmas at all - the story of the birth of Jesus Christ over nineteen hundred years ago in the stable at Bethlehem." 

He was referring to The Great Adventurer, the long running serial on page sixteen about the life of St. Paul, where Christmas was cleverly included in the strip as Paul told his audience at Philippi the story of Jesus' birth. This strip was still being produced by Frank Hampson's team, with Jocelyn Thomas as principal artist. They would hand over briefly to Alfred Sindall early in 1951, before Norman Williams took over as the regular back page biographies artist in February 1951. 

Meanwhile, back on page eleven still, Norman Thelwell's weekly three frame Chicko comedy strip featured Christmas and there was also a half page Competition Corner with a series of Christmas based puzzles and activities. Due to paper shortages EAGLE never wasted space and Readers' Letters also appeared on this page, although none related to Christmas. Page twelve was a one off Christmas text story Bagpipes for the Gallant, about a young Scots lad who gets the set of bagpipes he had always wanted after saving his sister's life and his family cottage by putting out a fire. It was written by E. Vincent, who was Ellen Vincent, the Assistant Editor of EAGLE. The 'drop in' pictures were by Will Nickless, who had illustrated the Worzel Gummidge books of Barbara Euphen Todd during the 1940s and would later produce illustrations for many children's books, including EAGLE and Swift Annuals. The top half of page thirteen was a Sporting Personalities strip about the showjumper Lt. Colonel Harry M. Llewellyn O.B.E. This was drawn by 'Ross' who we now know was really Ron Smith, who would go on to have a long career in comic strip illustration. His future work would include many strips for D.C. Thomson's comics and Judge Dredd in 2000 A.D. weekly thirty years later. 'Ross' had also illustrated the short strip about the origin of the Christmas tree in the same issue. The bottom half of page thirteen featured advertisements for Rolo, Subbuteo Table Soccer and Philidyne Cycle Dynamo Lighting Sets. 

On page fourteen, John Ryan's Harris Tweed Extra Special Agent 'solves' (if that's the right word!) The Case of the Two Father Christmases in a complete whole page adventure and on page fifteen Tommy Walls, a full page strip sponsored by Walls Ice Cream also had a one off Christmas adventure about turkey thieves, illustrated by Richard Jennings and despite the cold weather, Tommy continued to encourage readers to eat ice cream. Although this was essentially an advertising strip, Tommy Walls was extremely popular with readers, especially after it changed from one off stories to continuing ones in May 1952. Tommy was actually granted a four page colour strip in the second EAGLE Annual, produced for Christmas 1952 - the only occasion that he didn't eat or refer to Walls Ice Cream. First drawn by Frank Hampson in Issue One, the strip was later drawn by Eric Parker (of Sexton Blake fame), John Worsley, Walter Pannett, Harold Johns and Richard Jennings. Jennings also wrote many scripts for Tommy Walls and he would continue working for EAGLE after Tommy Walls ended, drawing and eventually writing the Storm Nelson-Sea Adventurer strip. Later he would be well known for his Dalek strips in TV Century 21 and Dalek books. 

In subsequent years the issues leading up to Christmas would feature a lot of adverts for EAGLE related merchandise, but despite its overnight success, EAGLE's publisher, Hulton Press and other companies were not yet ready to cash in, although Hulton did release an EAGLE Diary for 1951 and The EAGLE Book of Adventure Stories, but there was no EAGLE Annual until the following year. This might suggest that Hulton and Britain's toy companies were slow off the mark,  but there were still shortages of many commodities as a result of the War and some rationing was still in progress. EAGLE's success had exceeded all expectations and annuals were significant publications in the 1950s and 60s, so additional staff had to be appointed to build on the initial success. In fact Dan Dare would be Britain's first heavily merchandised fictional character, with toys, clothes, filmstrip projectors, books, tooth powder, brushes, watches, cups, card games, Easter eggs and transfers being produced.    

Although EAGLE's huge popularity ensured that commercialism seemed to dominate the publication, in later years, the religious significance of Christmas was always promoted in the Christmas issues throughout the editorships of Marcus Morris and his successor, Clifford Makins. Perhaps ironically, it was only in the 1960s when the declining popularity of Dan Dare and EAGLE meant that they were no were no longer being heavily merchandised, that the religious aspect was overlooked. 

I am grateful to Lew Stringer for allowing me to use his scans of the front page of the Christmas EAGLE and the Chicko strip and to Richard Sheaf and Steve Winders for providing and clarifying some information.

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 22

Two contributors to EAGLE had been prisoners of the Germans during the War and both recalled their experiences in significant post war films. Guy Morgan, who wrote the Storm Nelson strip for EAGLE, using the nom de plume of Edward Trice, wrote The Captive Heart, which was made just a year after the War and was filmed in the actual camp where he had been held. Although the central plot of this film is fictional, it focuses on a large group of characters and convincingly conveys the experiences of prisoners of War. Morgan also worked on the script of Albert R.N. (1953) which is a fictionalised account of a real event that had involved another EAGLE contributor, the artist John Worsley, who illustrated The Adventures of PC 49 from 1951 until 1957. As a prisoner, Worsley made a dummy to fool the Germans at roll call, enabling a prisoner to escape without being missed. (See above). The original 'Albert' dummy did not survive the War, but Worsley made another one for the film and this can still be seen in the Royal Naval Dockyard Museum in Portsmouth. 

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 5

WITH JIM DUCKETT 

When EAGLE began, radio was still king and two of its most popular strips originated as BBC radio series. PC 49 began in 1947 and 112 half hour adventures of the London policeman, played by Brian Reece, were made before the programme ended in 1953. PC 49’s adventures began in the first issue of EAGLE and ran until 1957. The radio adventures of Riders of the Range, featuring Paul Carpenter as Jeff Arnold, began in 1949 and six serials were broadcast between 1949 and 1953, with the EAGLE version beginning in December 1950 and running till March 1962. Unlike strip versions of later television series in other comics, which were invariably notably inferior to their originals, the EAGLE versions of both these radio series compared most favourably, probably because they were written by their creators and illustrated by excellent artists in John Worsley and Frank Humphris, who made the strips their own. Their success is evidenced by the fact that both outlasted their radio counterparts by several years.

Of the characters who were specially created for EAGLE, Dan Dare featured in a hugely successful series of radio serials on Radio Luxembourg between 1951 and 1955, where he was played by Noel Johnson, who had originated the popular Dick Barton character in 1947, for BBC radio. The BBC produced their own four part Dan Dare serial in 1990 to mark EAGLE'S fortieth anniversary, which featured Mick Brown as Dan and Donald Gee as Digby. In 1954, EAGLE began its own promotional programme on Radio Luxembourg, called Spread Your Wings and this featured a six part Luck of the Legion serial, narrated by Norman Shelley as an old legionnaire. Sergeant Luck also appeared on the commercial Springbok Radio in South Africa in 1979 in his own series, written by his creator Geoffrey Bond, twenty years after the strip ended in EAGLE.