THE THIRD CHRISTMAS EAGLE by John Culshaw

Having spent the first Christmas issue of EAGLE on Venus and the second on Mars, Dan and Digby were on Mercury for the third, dated 24th December 1952. As in 1951, there was just a single reference to Christmas in the strip. Dan and Digby are prisoners of the Treens and Digby comments on the fact that it is Christmas back on Earth in a single frame on page two. Dan Dare's creator Frank Hampson was suffering from a breakdown caused by overwork, so this story was illustrated by his team, led by Harold Johns and written by Chad Varah. The issue itself acknowledges Christmas in the title box, which has a decorative Christmas trim across the top and down the left hand side. There is a circular picture of stars behind the eagle image and the title letters are in yellow, instead of the usual white and have snow on them. This layout is exactly the same as the previous year's Christmas issue. 

The start of a new 'PC 49' adventure on page three provided the opportunity to reference Christmas strongly, with the episode devoted to the Boys' Club Christmas party and including a seven verse poem about the party extending down the middle of the page. Written by Alan Stranks and illustrated by John Worsley, the strip would run in EAGLE until 1957, although the radio series would end in May of 1953. Page four and a quarter of page five are occupied by the latest episode of the text serial 'The Adventure Club' by the prolific veteran writer J. Jefferson Farjeon, which does not relate to Christmas. However, there is a small 'EAGLE Window' advertising box in the bottom right hand corner of page seven which highlights the 'EAGLE Window' stand at the Schoolboy's Exhibition, being held in the Horticultural Hall in Westminster. Each week for several years, EAGLE included an 'EAGLE Window', which highlighted a different EAGLE related product. This one is number 77 and there were many more to go, indicating the vast amount of merchandising that the weekly spawned. The 'EAGLE  Window' stand at the exhibition featured many of the toys, clothes and other merchandise that were available. The rest of page five is occupied by a Christmas puzzle corner, an advertisement for a book about stamps, a request for donations to the N.S.P.C.C. and a short information piece sponsored by the tyre manufacturer, Dunlop. This is actually the seventeenth issue of the 'Dunlop Dispatch' and includes very short articles about Barrage Balloons and Paddle Wheels (from Paddle Steamers). It is not Christmas related. 

The next page is the 'Sports Page' and under the headline 'This was my Thrill of the Year', several of EAGLE's sports contributors have written about their most memorable sporting moments during 1952. These include E. Macdonald Bailey's recollection of Jamaica's success in the 4 x 400 metres relay at the Helsinki Olympics and Geoff Paish's celebration of Colin Gregory's fine performance in Tennis' Davis Cup  in the final set against Yugoslavia to give Great Britain victory. Gregory was actually replacing Paish, who was injured. Kenneth Wheeler, who was EAGLE's Sports editor recalled a fine performance by Arsenal's reserve defence to beat 'star studded' Blackpool and Jack Crayston witnessed the 1952 F.A. Cup Final from among a 'cross section' of Newcastle and Arsenal fans, a situation that would sadly be unthinkable today. Newcastle won, but Crayston's praises were heaped on Arsenal, who played much of the game with ten men. Although it was created by northerners, EAGLE was necessarily based in London, which is presumably why so many Arsenal supporters were employed on the Sports Page! The page also managed to include a small advertisement for the first EAGLE Sports Annual. 

Page eight is the first of the four colour centre pages and is occupied by 'Riders of the Range'. Now illustrated by its most celebrated artist, Frank Humphris, the heroes, Jeff , Luke and Jim Forsythe are in the early stages of 'Jeff Arnold and the Lost Bonanza', about an ornate Mexican saddle that Jeff buys which leads him and his friends into a series of perilous adventures. There was no Christmas reference in this episode. Written by Charles Chilton, at this time, 'Riders of the Range' was still on the radio, but it would finish there before next Christmas. However, Jeff's adventures in EAGLE would run for another nine years, produced by Chilton and Humphris. 

The top half of the centrespread is a 'cutaway' drawing by L. Ashwell Wood of the stage and backstage area of a theatre during a Christmas Pantomime. Like all Ashwell Wood's cutaways, it is highly detailed and obviously provides another Christmas element to the issue. Below the cutaway is 'Luck of the Legion', featuring in only his second serial adventure 'Death by the Dawn'. Written by Geoffrey Bond and illustrated by Martin Aitchison, the story is set in Syria and in this episode, Luck and his men narrowly escape death, when a bridge ahead of them is blown up by rebels or freedom fighters, depending on your point of view. As an ongoing serial, there is no mention of Christmas in this episode. 

Page eleven is split into two informative strips. The first is 'Their Names Made Words' and this is about William Banting, a nineteenth century undertaker who ate so much that he became unhealthily overweight, so he gave up beer, milk and all fatty foods, eating only meat, fish and dry toast. Christmas is quite cleverly contrived into this strip which begins by showing how many people ate huge Christmas meals in Victorian times and then leading in to Banting's dieting. Banting gave his name to dieting and the strip says "Women still say they are banting when they diet to get slim".  But this strip was produced in 1952 and while the word survived till then, it is no longer used today. The lower half of the page features a strip called 'Strange Animal Adventures' and references G.K. Chesterton's poem 'The Donkey' about the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem and then after the birth of Jesus, to safety in Egypt. As in Chesterton's poem, the strip ends with the same donkey being the one that carried Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, thirty three years later. When I first read Chesterton's poem, I looked up the life span of donkeys to find out if this was credible and it is. Donkeys can live for over forty years. Apart from the star of Bethlehem behind the eagle on the cover and a brief reference in the 'Banting' strip to Christmas meals celebrating the birthday of Christ, this is the first significant reference to Christmas being about Jesus' birth in this issue, but it is not the last. The Editor's Letter from the Rev. Marcus Morris, on the next page promotes a strong Christian message: We should give and receive presents, but we do it in remembrance of Christ. After referencing the other Christmas elements in the issue, the Editor goes on to introduce the new back page biography, which begins in this issue. This is the life of St. Vincent De Paul, the sixteenth century French priest and champion of the poor and Morris uses his example to promote his 'muscular Christianity' ideal. He says "there is nothing namby-pamby about being a Christian.... it's a man's job." He goes on to quote St. Paul, so this editorial is unequivocal in its message. 

The rest of the page is split into several sections as usual. There is a Christmas crossword competition with prizes of Ingersoll 'Dan Dare' pocket watches, a 'Readers' Letters' section, with one from Roy Dinning of Glasgow, suggesting that EAGLE Club badges should be polished daily. There is more news of the Schoolboy's Exhibition in Westminster, where there was an EAGLE stand in addition to the 'EAGLE Window' one mentioned earlier. This was the largest stand in the exhibition and was built in the form of Dan Dare's spaceship! EAGLE was not just a boy's weekly. It was a major part of juvenile culture in the 1950s. Also on the page is a short report on an EAGLE Club visit to Chessington Zoo, some photographs of prize winners from a previous competition, an advertisement for Marcus Morris' record about the forthcoming Coronation and the three picture humorous strip, 'Chicko' by Norman Thelwell. This had a Christmas theme. Chicko notices a sign in a shop window, saying 'We wish You a Merry Christmas' and he writes underneath 'Thank You! The Same To You!'

Page twelve and a quarter of page thirteen contains a complete text story 'Ron's Christmas' which is about a boy who finds a bag of stolen jewellery. Knowing that his widowed mother cannot afford to buy him and his siblings the presents they would like for Christmas, he toys with the idea of trying to sell them before his conscience leads him to take them to the Police. Worried that he will be punished for his delay, he is finally rewarded by the Jeweller who gives him enough money to buy presents for the whole family. The writer was Guy Daniel, an Anglican clergyman, who later scripted 'The Road of Courage' (the story of Jesus) and the life of Sir Walter Raleigh, for the back page. While these strips would be attributed to Marcus Morris, the scripting was by Daniel. No less than three Anglican vicars contributed to this Christmas issue, with Morris as editor and Chad Varah as scriptwriter of 'Dan Dare'. A corner of page twelve contains an advertisement for a small 'Ever Ready' hand held vacuum cleaner, while the rest of page thirteen includes a self examination Christmas quiz about unselfish behaviour, with three possible answers to each question, only one of which is correct. The rest of the page contains adverts for a club run by Cadbury's chocolate manufacturers, Newmark watches and 'Golden Arrow' stamp albums.

The last three pages are all strips, with 'Harris Tweed Extra Special Agent' occupying page fourteen. This humorous strip has a Christmas theme, with Tweed accidentally thwarting a robber's plan to use an anaesthetic gas to put everyone to sleep so that he can steal their jewels at a Christmas party. Tweed's whole page stories must have been a challenge for cartoonist John Ryan, for they each contained five rows of detailed strip artwork and they were consistently funny. Page fifteen featured 'Tommy Walls', the strip sponsored by Wall's Ice Cream. Since May, the strip had become a serial story instead of weekly self contained stories and it had also become extremely popular with readers. Illustrated by Richard Jennings and often written by him as well, this episode makes a brief reference to Christmas in the final frame of the strip, when Tommy, swimming in the Thames in an attempt to stop an evil megalomaniac from destroying the Houses of Parliament, thinks "What a way to spend Christmas Eve," and imagines himself succeeding and celebrating Christmas with a Wall's ice cream. With the introduction of serial stories, the 'Tommy Walls' strip moved into Dick Barton Special Agent territory, with fast paced action, which made it more difficult to honour its contract to include Wall's ice cream in every episode. Nevertheless, it did and the unlikely plots involving evil geniuses and secret service commandos proved a major success. Wall's must have been delighted. 

The final page marks the start of 'Man of Courage' about St. Vincent De Paul. Written by 'R.B. Saxe' whose real name was Francis John Dickson, it was illustrated by Norman Williams. Like most back page biographies, the strip begins with incidents from the subject's boyhood. These were usually fictional and in the case of Vincent, it gave Dickson the opportunity to include Christmas. The story begins on Christmas Eve and Vincent and his family go to the "Christmas Eve Service at Church" (presumably Midnight Mass) and they look at the crib before returning home. Vincent was an ideal subject for EAGLE, because he led an eventful life, which involved being captured and enslaved in North Africa, before escaping and later volunteering to take another man's place as a rower on a prison galley. He created an order of nuns to serve the poor that still functions to this day and he inspired a lay person's group which also provides for the needy and again is still active all over the world. Dickson wrote three back page biographies for EAGLE and although all three led genuinely action packed lives, he embellished them all with fictional villains and events in the finest traditions of Hollywood. 

This issue focuses quite successfully on the religious and charitable aspects of Christmas and avoids a strong emphasis on merchandise, despite the fact that EAGLE initiated so much. However, the issues leading up to Christmas were full of advertisements for EAGLE related products and other potential presents for boys, with special four page advertising supplements from late November to mid December. 

With the arrival of Frank Humphris and 'Luck of the Legion' and the change of 'Tommy Walls' to a serial story, EAGLE was continuing to improve. Despite the temporary absence of Frank Hampson from the 'Dan Dare' strip, the publication as a whole was far better than it had been at its launch two and a half years earlier and it would continue to improve for several years. 

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.