tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666361888901607962024-02-18T17:45:18.037-08:001930 to 1960This blog will explore interesting aspects of the history and literature of these three decades.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-88127633825056686872017-08-01T09:45:00.001-07:002017-08-18T10:19:46.977-07:00Eileen Heming (born Marsh) and Africa<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just going off Goodreads.com since they do not recognize books without ISBN numbers, which is about half the books I read. So here is what I might have said about some books I am finishing from the 1930s. All are nom de plumes of Eileen Hemng (born Marsh). She lived near Lymphne airport, Romney Marsh and though could not fly was fascinated by it. She wrote 120 books in 15 years under 18 different names. She mentions her village Aldington as a kind of signature, which happens in both of these books.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. <i>Secret of the Desert</i> by Guy Dempster, Lutterworth. 1939 A flying tale set in Sudan in 1939 about a crazed westerner trying to clear white folk out of Africa then attack Europe. I wonder who inspired it? Side story of a young boy rediscovering his father. The villain has an underground factory supported by African slave labour building a wide range of aircraft, the one's illustrated looking like Defiants. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. <i>Flying for Ethiopia</i> by E Martin Shard, Popular Press, no date stated. A not dissimilar story of building up the Ethiopian air-force for Haile Selassie. This is an unusual pen-name for Marsh/Heming</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both stories have high adventure, inspired by W E Johns of Biggles and Worralls fame. Some sentiments would be declared not politically correct today, but were typical of the time.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am reading a similar story by someone else, David Lindsay. <i>Wings over Africa</i>. It is not formally dated but there is an internal date of 1935 (not proof of the year of writing). The Italian campaign against Haile Selassie in Ethiopia/Abyssinia was clearly causing some excitement. This was part of "The Ace Series" which include some of W E Johns' early Biggles stories. The Lindsay book features a WW1 flying ace helping out the Ethiopians. Despite this the story is full of negative racial/racist stereotypes and black African lives are clearly regarded as of little or no value, hundred mowed down with a machine gun with unseemly rejoicing. The attitudes as well as the biplane were relics of the first world war as middle aged former fliers tried to place their memories into contemporary conflicts.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-17829015895842359562015-01-27T08:57:00.002-08:002015-01-31T14:54:10.196-08:00Isla MitchellI have come across a book for young teens written in 1944 but set in 1938 called <i>The Beginning Was a Dutchman </i>(Faber and Faber). A Roman Catholic family with intriguing names (Mark, Bede, Eusebius, Damian) take a trip by boat up the Grand Union Canal. The family buy a boat from a Dutch scientist, but it turns out he has invented a new explosive and the formula is missing. There is war reference (rather light on plausibility) in which the children are kidnapped and interviewed by the Gestapo. They encounter good Germans (that is a pious Roman Catholic captain) and readers are left in no doubt that good Germans do not approve of the war. There is a good description of the Grand Union as a working canal.<br />
Here is the title page:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyDQFkg8I1r0dqSBRaSDlWFIjiD1yzNdZuHFxZ-mSrW1wLqTWpiRrCUSDmQgvIDHX31U_A8BoJW4aQciWndF8e78T9udoEq-8Fyim0U4_1oCs9yfGtzCNmt4ShgDbYEV8WBFqFzPRjqlQ/s1600/P1070934.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyDQFkg8I1r0dqSBRaSDlWFIjiD1yzNdZuHFxZ-mSrW1wLqTWpiRrCUSDmQgvIDHX31U_A8BoJW4aQciWndF8e78T9udoEq-8Fyim0U4_1oCs9yfGtzCNmt4ShgDbYEV8WBFqFzPRjqlQ/s1600/P1070934.JPG" height="320" width="180" /></a></div>
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and pencil drawing on the front board of the boat and older children Mark and Bede (a girl):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4NkTFjkPmloVjd3EHD6ijejK3qcsfnHInDVd1ggeVFcBc_gd2BKBzS48SlrWubhhH8bGiPeZ39XlnIyVlV-9RC7y22mb8Y76UijxmjMVLzwn6DvLfNv8wBXBRgyPAekzWo_ZqCHFN3XE/s1600/P1070936.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4NkTFjkPmloVjd3EHD6ijejK3qcsfnHInDVd1ggeVFcBc_gd2BKBzS48SlrWubhhH8bGiPeZ39XlnIyVlV-9RC7y22mb8Y76UijxmjMVLzwn6DvLfNv8wBXBRgyPAekzWo_ZqCHFN3XE/s1600/P1070936.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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My copy has this inscription "from the Mitchells and Isla" to an unclear family name.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMkJOsLjyzzqGfZWuKdaBv7APAaXG9-uBgw03reenTX9vWYauGqkTgHUYBzocwQQGO9P6rbJAI8CtVGPkVShuQ0N0OKB2-wDpKKS-9Igs6TEOsTSsNvZjhCXLbxm28iFjQiZaXfQU95bM/s1600/P1070933.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMkJOsLjyzzqGfZWuKdaBv7APAaXG9-uBgw03reenTX9vWYauGqkTgHUYBzocwQQGO9P6rbJAI8CtVGPkVShuQ0N0OKB2-wDpKKS-9Igs6TEOsTSsNvZjhCXLbxm28iFjQiZaXfQU95bM/s1600/P1070933.JPG" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Isla also wrote a book on Ireland in 1952 called <i>Irish Roundabout </i>with illustrator Benedict Mitchell. Saints names seem to have a fascination for this family! According to the blurb, "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 17.3999996185303px;">Story of a happy and often hilarious visit of a young brother and sister to the land of their forefathers--Ireland. For ages 12 & up." </span> I have only seen American editions (Dodd Mead of New York). </span><br />
I would love to learn and further details of Isla and any other works.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-81011794598773447352013-11-20T07:54:00.000-08:002013-11-20T08:32:33.886-08:00Henry Clarence Harridge, 1930s artist.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">© Stephen Bigger.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">I possess a small collection of the artwork of Henry Clarence Harridge..</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">There is no biography anywhere, and little on the web, so I would be pleased for any information.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB"> I bought a few pieces in
nearby Highworth near where he then lived: his etchings were being sold in a local
art shop, where I bought <i>The Prospect of
Whitby, </i>and <i>The Ouse Near Kings Lynn</i>.
He had been emptying his garage prior to moving away. Since then I have found
and purchased a few more, including an original pencil and wash drawing of the
Thames from Bankside, and a related etching. Harridge’s favoured
medium was etching, learned at <span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Hornsea
School of Art under John Moody and Norman James in the early 1930s. A few oils
and pencil drawings have also appeared in auction. His grandfather was also Henry Clarence H-, his
father Frederick William H- </span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222;">(1881-1954)</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">, and mother May (Osborn, b.
1884). Our Henry Clarence was born in </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Edmonton,
London on 23 Feb 1908, and </span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">married Hilda (Weir) in December
1935: Hilda died in 2005. HC lived </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;">in Swindon </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">till 2005, then Melksham and I understand that he now lives in Stoke Newington, the
oldest living English artist. I have not come across any post 1940 work, so his
active period was only four or five years.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A postcard etching indicates on the back that this was
self-published from 9 George Street, Hastings, in all likelihood the artist’s
flat above the commercial premises below (now a restaurant). The card is
undated, the signature in small block capitals is the same as on an original
drawing by him I possess dated 1938.<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">His etching prints are ‘limited
edition’ signed with a flowing pencil autograph from a later date, giving the
date of the original etching. I presume they were printed later from the old
plates since the prints are crisp and fresh. Of the first pair I bought, the
Ouse near Denver, looked towards Kings Lynn (1936, 150 x 100 mm)<i> </i>sketched whilst the artist was on
honeymoon (detail pencilled on the back).</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB">My second purchase was the <i>Prospect of Whitby</i> public house from the
Thames (200x150mm). The front of the pub
is on Wapping Wall, (a street in Wapping, London). </span></span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;">I have a much larger impressed
etching of the </span><st1:place w:st="on">Thames</st1:place><span style="background-color: white;"> from Bankside (410x325mm,
dated 1937), showing the river, boats and Wapping warehouses opposite, drawn in
great detail. Using artist’s licence, he has placed </span><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">St Paul</st1:city></st1:place><span style="background-color: white;">’s dome as the background. In the original pencil and water-colour I possess, this is replaced by Puddle Dock</span></span></div>
<span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> If you have any further information, please leave a comment.</span></span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">© Stephen Bigger. With thanks to Keith Taylor.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-55985671423586250872013-10-18T13:47:00.001-07:002013-11-20T08:41:02.022-08:00David T. Lindsay wrote 1936-1941<span style="color: #373737; font-family: inherit;">Borrowing with thanks from </span><a href="http://desturmobed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/david-t-lindsay.html" style="font-family: inherit;">http://desturmobed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/david-t-lindsay.html</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I am asking now for information about the writer David T Lindsay who wrote aviation books for boys as well as adult novels. These cover similar ground to other writers I am studying. Any information about the author will be thankfully received. I have just read Inspector Jackson Goes North, an improbable police sleuthing story based in Scotland (Fife) where the author may have come from (see the link above). Ace books on flying are fetching a high price at the moment. Also have just read </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Wings Over Africa</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a rather unpleasant story of support for Heile </span>Selassie's Ethiopia<span style="font-family: inherit;"> in the Italian campaign in which too many natives are machine gunned or bombed to death. Features a plane with a silent engine. A parallel story to the much better <i>Flying For Ethiopia</i> by </span>E Malcolm Shard, aka Dorothy Eileen (Marsh) Heming/Dorothy Carter /Guy Dempster, on which see the discussion in an earlier post..<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 1.4;">A full chronological list of David T. Lindsay’s books is given below, with brief notes on series and recurring characters. All titles were published by John Hamilton of </span><st1:city style="font-size: small; line-height: 1.4;" w:st="on">London</st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 1.4;">.</span></div>
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<i>The Ninth Plague</i> [March 1936]<br />
Part of The Sundial Mystery and Adventure Library. Richard Monroe.</div>
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<i>The Two Red Capsules</i> [May 1936] </div>
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Richard Monroe; Inspector Jackson</div>
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<i>Wings over <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place> </i>[July 1936] Ace Series</div>
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<i>Inspector <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Jackson</st1:city></st1:place> Investigates</i> [September 1936] </div>
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Inspector <st1:city w:st="on">Jackson</st1:city></div>
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<i>Air Bandits</i> [February 1937] Ace Series</div>
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<i>Masked Judgment</i> [March 1937] Ace Series<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The Black Fetish</i> [May 1937]<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The Flying Crusader</i> [May 1937] Ace Series<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The Green Ray</i> [July 1937] Ace Series <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Wings over the Amazon</i> [November 1937] Ace Series <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Another Case for Inspector <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Jackson</st1:city></st1:place></i> [January 1938] </div>
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Inspector <st1:city w:st="on">Jackson</st1:city><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The Flying Armada</i> [April 1938] Ace Series<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Temple</st1:city></st1:place> of the Flaming God</i> [May 1938] Ace Series </div>
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<i>The Man Nobody Knew</i> [September 1938]</div>
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Inspector <st1:city w:st="on">Jackson</st1:city><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Inspector <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Jackson</st1:city></st1:place> Goes North</i> [February 1939] </div>
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Inspector <st1:city w:st="on">Jackson</st1:city><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Vengeance Rides North</i> [May 1939]<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Stranglehold</i> [September 1939] Ace Series</div>
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<i>Mystery of the Tumbling V </i> [January 1940]</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-80001390093451467982013-10-13T07:29:00.000-07:002013-11-20T07:57:47.415-08:00Lawrence R Bourne books<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.5px;">© Stephen Bigger.</span><br />
Red-haired Coppernob Buckland (1925) is a doughty Boys Own Paper style story. Walter Buckland is in boarding school, about to go up to Oxbridge on a scholarship. After a false accusation, he is expelled and runs away to sea. I am not telling the blow-by-blow story, but in brief he does well as a first tripper, sails an abandoned boat single handed back to Southampton (has he drowned the captain should have been arrested for criminal negligence and manslaughter), finds a link to his bank manager father, gets involved with alcohol running into prohibition USA, is captured by pirates and finally solves the mystery so that a thief from his father's bank is arrested. Not bad for a teenager. By the end, he is no longer accused, has his scholarship, but decides on a sea career. A few points of interest in a story that is able to name and describe ports and sea journeys with apparent accuracy. It curiously starts at Lydney, a tiny port for carrying timber and coal up the Severn from the Forest of Dean, showing local knowledge. Despite accurate naming of destinations, his ship picks up barrels of whisky from an unnamed port on the Mull of Kintyre (actually, Campbelltown, and not a bad whisky). He clearly did not know the port's name in this case. The first three Coppernob books appeared as a Coppernob Omnibus in 1933 to accompany the fourth in the series. One later story was rejected by the publisher but still exists in manuscript.<br />
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A few examples of Bourne covers and dustjackets<br />
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Stamped boards: the gold stamp will be a library stamp</div>
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This title had at least one other board decoration (see previous post)</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.5px;">© Stephen Bigger.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-17811865066005712202013-10-03T10:22:00.001-07:002013-11-20T08:00:46.006-08:00Lawrence R Bourne, again<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.5px;">© Stephen Bigger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I asked in April for information about this writer active in the 1920s and 1930s.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">Thanks to his grand-daughter Kathy for much of the information below. His real name was Lawrence Harbourn, born 10.10.1879 (from his passport) and died in 1941. The family possess this obituary:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">Mr L H A Harbourn
passed away on Nov 16<sup>th</sup> [1941] after a brief illness He
was born in London where his father was Minister of the Regent's Park
Congregational Church and a contemporary of Dr Parker of the City Temple who
was a frequent visitor to their home. Mr Harbourn's grandfather had been a
missionary and his father subsequently took up the same work. As a youth
Mr Harbourn was active in Christian work in London, preaching in mission Halls,
speaking in the open air and assisting the Salvation Army in the slums.
He took a keen interest in the Boy Scout Movement in its early days and was the
Leader of a Troup.</span></i><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">He came to Newport in
1915 and was introduced by Mr Holbrook to the Mission at Penylan. He
became the organist there and conducted the services on many occasions and by
his zeal enthusiasm and his experiences was able to forward considerably the
work of the Mission. It was fitting therefore that the last service he
conducted before his illness should have been at Penylan, and that his funeral should
have been held there.</span></i><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">Through all the years
he continued to serve with the Lay Preacher's Association, and his delight was
to visit the country churches throughout the county. They will miss his
genial presence and his homely words. Mr Harbourn was a gifted musician
and artist and his work in the literary world was widely recognised. He
wrote under the pen-name of Lawrence R Bourn upward of a score of books - some
of them text-books of the sea, upon which he was an authority - but most of
them were boys sea stories and were deservedly very popular. He was on
the staff of a London Newspaper for a period of 43 years, and the tributes paid
to him by his colleagues reveal the high esteem in which he was held.</span></i><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">To Mrs Harbourn and
the four children we extend our loving sympathy in their great loss.</span></i><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">A Lawrence Harbourn attended</span><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;"> Brigg Grammar School as a boarder from 1889: boarding school was a common experience for the children of missionaries. See http://www.briggensians.net/thelibrary/BGSTO1969.pdf.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;">He lived in Chesterfield Road, St Andrews, Bristol in
February 1910, was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">discharged as unfit from the Army in 1917, and</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> moved to Clevedon Road Newport in August 1918,
where he lived until his death.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><b>Published works </b>(Oxford University Press unless stated)</span></span><br />
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<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">Seamanship </i><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">(</span><span style="line-height: 15px;">Handicraft Books for Scouts, with numerous diagrams </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">by the author and R.H. Penton, paper card covers, ca. 1923</span><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Channel Pirate - A West Country Sea Story</i> (1923)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Treasure of the Hebrides</i> (1924)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Coppernob Buckland</i> (1925)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 14.25pt; mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Radium Casket</i> (1926)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Coppernob - Second Mate</i> (1927)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 14.25pt; mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Well Tackled - A Story of a Shipyard </i>(1928)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Captain Coppernob - The Story of a Sailing Voyage </i>(1929)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 14.25pt; mso-yfti-irow: 3;">
<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">T<i>he Adventures of John Carfax - A Story of the Press Gang</i> (1930)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Copppernob - Ship Owner</i> (1931)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 14.25pt; mso-yfti-irow: 4;">
<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Copperknob and the Cryptogram</i> (rejected but manuscript exists, 1932)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 14.25pt; mso-yfti-irow: 5;">
<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Eastward Bound - A Story of Modern Smuggling </i>(1933)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Fourth Engineer </i>(1934)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #222222;"><i>Stark Naked</i> (published by </span><span style="line-height: 15px;">Frederick Muller, London, </span><span style="color: #222222;">1934) reviewed </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">favourably by Dorothy Sayers in The
Times 6.1.34 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Chronicles of Jerry </i>(1935)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Radium Island </i>(1936)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>Mixed Cargoes</i> (short stories, 1938),<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Saving His Ticket</i> (1939)</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;"><i> </i>T</span><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">here is a French translation of <i>Coppernob Buckland, Les aventures de Buckland "boule de cuivre"</i>! Also, </span><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">T<i>he Voyage of the Lulworth: A Story of the Great Days of Sail,</i> Oxford UP (info on back cover of <i>Saving His Ticket</i>). It also notes that <i>Radium Island</i> was sequel to <i>The Radium Casket</i>. </span></span><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">There was a <i>Lawrence R Bourne Omnibus</i> (of Coppernob stories) in 1933, and a </span><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;">1936 omnibus of T<i>he channel pirate, The treasure of the Hebrides </i>and <i>The adventures of John Carfax.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: #222222;">Short</span></b><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><b><span style="color: #222222;">stories published in the Boys Own Annuals</span></b><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Straight Sea Stories</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Haunted in Mid-Atlantic<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Adrift in the Atlantic<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Paying a debt<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Race Home<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">On the Overdue List<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Scouting Stories</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Strange Affair at Porthlesky<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Broken Glass<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Black Beacons<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">A Knife and a Piece of String<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Musholme<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Brazendial Stories</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Under the Cromlech<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Mammoths's Leg<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Smuggled Goods<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Captain Black Yarns</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Yarn of the Waggoner<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">In Tow<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">In Dock on an Iceberg<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Black Cat for Luck<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Story of the Pageant ?title<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<td style="height: 14.25pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Old Bosun Yarns</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Yarn of the Bullfrog<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Captain Ashore<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Pilots<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Smuggling<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">A Motor Trip<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Nerve<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Speed<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Miscellaneous</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Dye<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Ship Aground<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><b>Manuscripts existing</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Ghosts Ridiculous (Professor
Brazendial short story 1930)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Memory (Nagna Sansrcit short story 1933)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Copperknob and the Cryptogram<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Tie Alma Mater<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Murder at the Altar (short story)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Troubles (Chronicles) of Jerry (1935)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Captain Copperknob (1929)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copperknob Buckland (draft)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZEjJ_4aSQPR2QExLz4plQ9pfOIlAsaYHU4vWtbwQjzgQ4csyqv0yHapK_5P1yqLyXwTS5z4OSxfwhlzGWypCb6zETtrXCq7sIBrtMNUl0P4ygALSqZi8m6uHMut6A1a_RZITnB6yUwc/s1600/P1060568.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZEjJ_4aSQPR2QExLz4plQ9pfOIlAsaYHU4vWtbwQjzgQ4csyqv0yHapK_5P1yqLyXwTS5z4OSxfwhlzGWypCb6zETtrXCq7sIBrtMNUl0P4ygALSqZi8m6uHMut6A1a_RZITnB6yUwc/s200/P1060568.JPG" width="173" /></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px;">I have just finished </span></span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 16.5625px;">Well Tackled! - A Story of a Shipyard</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px;"> (blue boards, 1930, price 1/6d), illustrations (dust jacket and frontispiece) by Victor Cooley. It has a BOP feel of daring do. Benson Wilsthorpe, a young man about to go to university, finds himself owner of a small Birkenhead shipyard at Ellersley after his uncle's death. After settling in, he wins respect and has a chance meeting with an old friend Paget who has invented a new fuel (a mix of petroleum and TNT explosive!) and a new steel which is tough enough to withstand the power of internal combustion. Together this means ships can be built, even battleships, that can go at 100 knots. After refusing to be cheated, he and Benson amicably agree to develop the new boat. The Admiralty take the development under their wing. A mysterious organisation wants to steal the secrets and take them to Russia. Paget is </span></span><span style="line-height: 16.5625px;">kidnapped apparently to be taken to Russia, but rescued by the new speedy craft. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px;"> A cross-Atlantic new ship is taken over by pirates, and is given a new course for Russian waters... Anything else will be a spoiler, but rest assured all is well in the end. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16.5625px;">Note these blue boards are beautifully embossed (Oxford University Press).</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: left;">© Stephen Bigger.</span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-74145701550551536812013-10-03T08:33:00.001-07:002013-10-03T15:07:41.583-07:00The Pirate Island by D E Heming, 1938.A chance find in the local Oxfam Bookshop. I shall review it gradually, so this is a brief stub to get started. My copy has blue boards, no dust-jacket - if anyone can supply photo, please do via comments.Size 8<span style="font-size: x-small;">1/4</span> by 6 inches, 1<span style="font-size: x-small;">3/4</span> thick, 248 pages. There is an embossed four-armed propeller. The title page attributes authorship to D.E. Heming. In saying "author of The Phantom Wing" by way of advertisement, D E Heming is identified with "Guy Dempster", the author's name given in that book in this series, a popular Heming 'brand' when writing gory war stories for boys. The name "Dempster Heming" was used for the popular Peter Clayton books. The name D E Heming was also used for <i>The Girls Book of Heroines </i>and <i>The Boys Book of Heroes</i>, two books best forgotten.<br />
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A further advertisement lists "other books in the Air Adventure Series - three by husband Jack (Heming) and three others by Eileen as Dorothy Carter (<i>Flying Dawn</i>), James Cahill (<i>Flying with the Mounties</i>) and Guy Dempster (<i>The Phantom Wing</i>). The other books are by other writers John Grant (a story of India), M.E. Miles and Michael Cronin. The latter's son-in-law Peter Nethercot writes (for which I am very grateful): <span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16.5625px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">Michael Brendon Leo Cronin 1907-1987 was my father in law. He also wrote under the names of David Miles and M.E. Miles (his wife's maiden name). He was educated at Queens College, Dublin and after graduating joined the Royal Air Force as a school teacher. On the outbreak of the second world war he transferred into the provost branch, and from there to special branch. Most of his writing took place after the war which is well documented.</span></span></span><br />
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An appraisal is offered by Eric Bates, <i>Among Her Own People, </i>pages 128f. Bates dates the book as 1937, but one for sale was awarded as a school prize in 1936. The (2nd) Italo-Ephiopian war, which saw Haile Selassie exiled to London, was from October 1935 to May 1936. The Claytons, heroes of the book, set off by amphibian to Addis Ababa via Malta around February, father and son Pip, to rescue Pip's uncle Bob.. The gung-ho tone of the book, which offers the Italians a very bloody nose and points out the dignity of the Ethiopian defence, was almost certainly written at that point, before the Italian 'victory'. The Claytons were well off and well connected, knowing Haile Selassie personally, one brother being Consul in Ethiopia, and having an airfield attached to their mansion home. On arrival in Ethiopia, Pip spots a 'Supermarine Fighter', a prototype, which he dubs The Fighting Ethiopian as he joins the Ethiopian air force in his father's absence. He joins a group of four aeroplanes who massacre squadrons of Italian bombers, even stealing two during a daring rescue. I won't summarise the whole plot, just say that superboy Pip is not only a superb fighter pilot, but speaks both Amharic and two Ethiopian dialects, thanks to his uncles tuition, deaf and dumb sign language, and is a natural born killer.<br />
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On matters of detail, the Saro Cloud was a sizable amphibian/ seaplane with two engines on top of the wings, retractable wheels at the side for dry landings, and wing floats for sea landings. Introduced 1930, it was used for training purposes in RAF Calshot near Southampton. It is accurately described. It is an expensive plane to be in private ownership, although four were privately operated!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUJr4MDrQH7jRPp-6meWFV6CwJnVqzGemCtu6Q16oyJU0L_Hw8EPLiEwhBMQPWu1VwtcX2rINTn__Xre25DuzbBzlgCsnCGdfYnSFc5IHO4hBskI3RqdCjULUaHHU_HcJBopy19eT2250/s1600/800px-Saro_cloud_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUJr4MDrQH7jRPp-6meWFV6CwJnVqzGemCtu6Q16oyJU0L_Hw8EPLiEwhBMQPWu1VwtcX2rINTn__Xre25DuzbBzlgCsnCGdfYnSFc5IHO4hBskI3RqdCjULUaHHU_HcJBopy19eT2250/s320/800px-Saro_cloud_001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzRmA1HpPNj1jwTOdsqP_zAVXO7OrqoPsLFcJlffQ_nt1Mj_HxbOu88OxLWh8cJ6UYOM53rbsZXZfI6mj8_LNXGoouGJJo_15WxSUEBknm4LPN1ZisY1h3WPKzBt35PMGRAjY4cKJNCY/s1600/P1060558.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzRmA1HpPNj1jwTOdsqP_zAVXO7OrqoPsLFcJlffQ_nt1Mj_HxbOu88OxLWh8cJ6UYOM53rbsZXZfI6mj8_LNXGoouGJJo_15WxSUEBknm4LPN1ZisY1h3WPKzBt35PMGRAjY4cKJNCY/s200/P1060558.JPG" width="149" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">The 'Supermarine Fighter' is not the Spitfire and is depicted in a plate (left, </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">initialled by Howard Leigh</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">) as having cantilevered "gull" wings.It is the Supermarine Type 224, designed by R J Mitchell of Spitfire fame, with cantilevered wings (picture below), ceiling </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.1875px;">38,800</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"> feet, maximum speed 228 mph powered by a single RR Goshawk II liquid-cooled engine, and armed with 4 Vickers machine guns. Only one flew from 1934, and was found to be disappointing losing out in 1936 to the Gloster Gladiator for RAF orders. It ended life in 1937 as a target on a firing range. However lessons learned from its design and performance led to the development of the Spitfire in the late 1930s. Another connection: Supermarine was established by </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Pemberton_Billing" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.1875px;" title="Noel Pemberton Billing">Noel Pemberton Billing</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.1875px;"> in 1913: one of the pilots in this book is called 'Billings'. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The representation of Ethiopians is curious. The 'native' is described as feckless, unreliable and without work discipline. 'Native'women (who had actually done an outstanding job and showed great common sense and fortitude, are described as of slow intelligence. However the royal family, including a boy of Pip's age, Makonnen, is depicted with great respect. In one official, Rastofarind, we can see the name Rastafari being drawn on, i.e. a follower of Haile Selassie. For the Italians, no respect is shown whatever.</span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-32462700227413740872013-09-16T07:53:00.000-07:002015-03-01T23:39:06.479-08:00Dorothy Carter, Comrades of the Air, 1942.Dorothy Carter is a pen-name of Eileen Heming nee Marsh, died 1948. See my earlier description of her work. <i>Comrades of the Air </i>from 1942 is one of her Marise stories. It is very difficult to obtain since it only had its initial print run, and some of that was bombed in store. It is a pair with <i>Sword of the Air </i>which is similarly hard to find. <i>Sword</i> was an escapade in Nazi Germany; Comrades takes the story to Russia at the time of the Nazi invasion of Moscow. The dust-jacket illustrator (the same as the frontispiece picture of Katya and Marise) is by Newton Whittaker, an illustrator who worked on a range of books for your people such as by Pamela Brown and Nancy Breary. Any reader with personal knowledge of this illustrator please leave a comment. <i>Comrades</i> measures 7 1/8 by 5 inches with 204 pages published by Collins (London and Glasgow). The rear of the dj advertises the contemporary Holiday Books of Jane Shaw, the pre-war Farm School Books of Josephine Elder, and the New Abbey Series of Elsie Oxenham.<br />
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I have read many children's books from this period and <i>Comrades</i> is a good one. Some aspects might have seemed to be sheer anti-Nazi propaganda at the time but sadly have turned out to be true - the Nazis shooting POWs and hostages from villages, looting, sinking neutral ships, Gestapo brutality and so on. You only have to read the books of Helen Fry to find real incriminating evidence. Marise is in the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) as a aeroplane ferry pilot. The job she hustles for in this book is to ferry a plane to Russia because her best mates (male pilots) are going there. This is not a romantic plot, but rather 'I can do it if you can' feminism. As always I will try not to spoil the plot for new readers, but inevitably there will be very few new readers unless a reprint is arranged. It opens with a noisy party in Aldington, Kent, which is Eileen Marsh/Heming's home village (and appears almost as a signature in many books).<br />
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Apart from the usual Spitfires and Hurricanes, she mentions the (Westland) Whirlwind which served from 1940 but was obsolete by 1944. The author's high praise (p.11) was not warranted. Marise had also flown a 'Fortress' - a few Boeing B17 Flying Fortresses were owned by the RAF in 1941 (before America entered the war). But, as Marise said, we are talking too loud. In Russia Marise meets Katya Vanevska and her brother Ivan, also meeting up with her father who has a mysterious secret role in the war. In <i>Sword of the Air</i>, Marise met him in Germany in most unwise circumstances. Russian women, the story explains, fly in combat - Katya was a gunner. Although excitable and a staunch Soviet and example of 'epic Russian heroism', the blurb says, Katya looked up to Marise on all occasions: Marise was apparently a natural leader. Unfortunately, a Nazi advance cut off their airfield, and a bombing raid seriously injured Marise's father. They needed to get aeroplanes away, and Marise was asked to fly the fourth bomber. An attack by Nazi fighters gave Marise her first 'kill' (two in fact); however her radio and compass were shot out and she lost touch with the other three planes. Looking for an airfield, which they never found, they ended without fuel at the White Sea, landed on the beach, only to discover that they were a short distance from a U-Boat refueling base. A U-Boat arrived, and torpedoed a neutral Swedish steamer - the captain's wife and child floated ashore on a lifeboat, and they became part of the escape party. Having whet your appetite, I won't give away how they escaped, were helped by a woodman who didn't know the Tzar had been overthrown, were captured by the Nazis, escaped from there home again. Someone might republish the book - it is the best of the Marise titles. The pro-Russian sentiment is interesting, especially depicting the Russian people as suffering. The Nazis are depicted as violent, murderous and oppressive, as indeed they were.<br />
Other old friends: Jim Grant, one-eyed hero of an earlier war and a Hollywood crash stuntman (see <i>Star of the Air</i>), Tony Arcoll and Jim Custance, fighter pilots who were loaned to Russia. Jim Grant said, "Give me my four-cannon Hurricane, thank you" (p.11). Every schoolboy knew that the Hurricane had 8 Browning machine guns, later increased to 12. That made me look up its service record. <span style="font-family: inherit;">The <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Hurricane Mk IIC (introduced June 1941) </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">replaced the machine-gun armament with four 20 mm (.79 in)</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> </span>Hispano Mk II<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">cannons. DC is thus absolutely up to date, although Marise would have said, Hush, not too loud, walls have ears.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-38508195003141725012013-07-07T14:58:00.001-07:002017-05-17T05:49:59.454-07:00J Lennox Kerr and Cammill Laird Shipbuilders We know that JLK was contracted to write a history of Cammill Laird. We have the contract. He had earlier written <i>The Unfortunate Ship</i> about the early Laird vessel <i>Birkenhead</i> which sank with considerable loss of life. Lairds had virtually founded Birkenhead as a port, and produced both merchant and war ships, including the <i>Ark Royal</i>.<br />
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But here there is mystery. A typescript exists in the Wirral Record Office (Cammill Laird Archive) of an unpublished JLK manuscript. Was it the only one, or one of several? I have here <i>Builders of Great Ships</i>, declared to be authored by Cammill Laird and with clear signs of marketing department involvement. It says in its Acknowledgements, thanks are due to " J Lennox Kerr for many of the facts which appear in this book". It is not however the book of the typescript. There are several similar books, including <i>The History of Cammill Laird</i>, again "authored" by Cammill Laird. It is clear that Kerr was deeply involved in this project; it is not quite clear who authored what.<br />
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<i>Builders of Great Ships</i> was published by Richard Garrett Services Ltd who "prepared the text", whatever this means. It traces the story from the beginning in 1810 through two world wars to the present day (1959). It is a simple text with many photographs - a marketing monograph.<br />
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JLK also wrote as Peter Dawlish and Gavin Douglas.<br />
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Postscript: We found the typescript, which is now being copied into pdf.<br />
Postscript 2, April 2017. Adam Kerr, who holds the typescript, died August 2016.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-18641353908225114232013-05-28T08:32:00.000-07:002013-06-03T01:48:59.588-07:00Wavy Navy 1950. J Lennox Kerr and David James.James Lennox Kerr (see other posts) was an experienced seaman who served in the RNVR (Royal Navy <span style="background-color: lightyellow; color: #400040; text-align: -webkit-center;">Volunteer Reserve) during WW2. Details of his service are sparse since his autobiographical writings finish in 1937. He edited (with David James) <i>Wavy Navy by some who served</i> in 1950 (Harrap) with a Foreword by the Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope. In it he contributed three chapters. He also wrote <i>The R.N.V.R.: A Record of Achievement</i> with Wilfred Granville in 1957.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: lightyellow; color: #400040; text-align: -webkit-center;">JLK's three chapters are written in his three writing names. The J Lennox Kerr chapter 'Third Officer Felicia McClusky' is a very amusing piece about a ship who invented a female officer, giving her a dressed up room and referring to her in ways that seemed to make her more real over time. The WRNS took her to heart and in the end, after visiting her, took her away with them. When an officer was married, a joke telegram was received from Felicia expressing her dismay but wishing them well. Under the pen-name Peter Dawlish, he wrote 'Those Charming Old Gentlemen' is an amusing appreciation of the old-timers who, brought out of retirement, worked behind the scenes to set up and inspect the raggle-taggle efforts of seamen in harbours across the land with no navy training or discipline. They are described as having worked miracles, in a job that was intended to marginalise them since they had kicked the hind-ends of My Lords of the Admiralty (as boy trainees) and knew senior officers as scruffy midshipmen. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: lightyellow; text-align: -webkit-center;"><span style="color: #400040;">they possessed one tremendous quality: they were stiff with Naval tradition and pride in a craft they had never forsaken in their hearts. To these charming old gentlemen theirs was a holy task. They swept aside the rights of property owners like any 'damned socialist' and claimed the fairest vistas in England; they remembered every trick of scrounging orthievery they had learned as magistrates on the Bench; they tricked their bosom friends, lied, bullied and black-guarded; and they raised every sort and shape of hut in every possible material from asbestos sheeting to plywood and named it HMS This or That. A square of concrete became a quarterdeck. A tin hut was a wardroom. Their bridge was a varnished chair, and, I repeat, they built a Navy - our Navy</span></span></blockquote>
They were "quite the wrong people to be running us amateur sailors". In learning to fool them, they actually got what they wanted : "we had built our little Navy, and it worked.<br />
Under the pen-name Gavin Douglas, 'Tell Us about D-Day' gives an account of a support vessel taking American troups over to Omaha beech on the second wave of D-Day. It sounds autobiographical, but he is using his fiction-writer's persona. He, the captain and supposed writer, is aged about 45 with most of his crew under 20, most of whom had never sailed before their training in Scotland. This is the right age for JLK. His age at the time of writing (1949) he gives as around 50, again right. In my view, he wanted to tell the honest tale of stubborn bravery without seeming to boast.<br />
The boat was an LCT Mark IV in Q squadron. It was to carry 6 Sherman tanks, 2 half-track supply trucks, and a Red Cross jeep, plus 4 officers and 54 GIs. The Americans, well supplied with cigarettes and chewing gum, gave most of this away with obsessive generosity. The paperwork was so dense that it had to be sifted for things of relevance and the rest carefully burnt. The craft were gathered in orderly fashion in Plymouth Sound. The convoy departed at 2am on 4th June, only to be ordered back until next day. The author gives high praise of the efforts of these amateur crews.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The scene off the beach was too astounding for an emotion so inadequate as surprise. One accepted it because the the only way to marvel was to start counting the ships, barges, landing craft, concrete units, battleships, cruisers, sweepers and the hundreds of other types of vessels, and to consider how this multitude had been collected in the ports of England, and had sailed across enemy waters in one night...and none of us was in a mood for counting ships.</blockquote>
They all mustered without collision. The hands had dressed for the occasion in their best uniforms. The landing was difficult as battle raged, the jeep being lost in an invisible hole. But all was landed and some wounded taken off.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I am a seaman of many year's experience, and am a steady old man nearing fifty. I want to say how much praise is due to the young fellows who officered and manned those landing craft. No one, in our own or other navies, could have done the job better. There were no heroics, nothing but an even and high standard of ability as seamen and as men.Any attempt to make the voyage glamorous or exciting would be stupid. A cold description that requires no adorning is the only tribute anyone can pay.</blockquote>
Editors have a number of jobs, one to source material, and another to make the whole readable. JLK produced these three stories to add enjoyment to the mix of material. Another, 'First Trip' by Ronald Hope, is on a subject close to JLK's heart since he wrote two first tripper books. Hope produced an impressive list of seafaring books: any reader with information about his life please get in touch through comments.<br />
<br />
<b>Postscript.</b><br />
Dr Ronald Hope OBE, after war service, left Oxford University in 1947 to become first Director of the Seafarers Education Service. This became part of the Marine Society (an ancient Navy recruitment charity) in 1976, a year which saw many such amalgamations as the Marine Society refigured itself into an educational support service. Hope was first Director of this new enterprise. He wrote several books on the Merchant Navy, including <i>The Seaman's World: Merchant Seamen's Reminiscences (1982) </i>from which these details come. See also the Wikipedia entry on The Marine Society.<br />
<br />
Finally: J L Kerr also edited <i>Touching the Adventures of Merchantmen in the Second World War </i>in 1953. This was a joint enterprise with Dr Ronald Hope, then of the Seafarers Education Service, who did the "tedious clerical work and organization" (Preface) after an appeal for stories in nautical journals. This volume includes a story by "Peter Dawlish", a JLK pseudonym: it is a tale of a navy old-timer returning to serve during the war, finding that the navy had changed, and old skills were difficult to recover. Hostility to him by fellow crew disappeared when he spotted a mine and instinctively steered the ship away from it while everyone else panicked. He had served previously on minesweepers and now won instant respect for this newly needed expertise.<br />
<i>Touching the Adventures of Merchantmen </i>can be regarded as the start of a programme to encourage seaman literacy which has matured today into the educational mission of the Marine Society.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-45847013464425645672013-05-27T04:27:00.000-07:002013-05-27T04:27:04.903-07:00Woman of Glenshiels - Lennox Kerr, 1935This novel is about the tribulations and aspirations of a working class woman, Mary Bassett, within a system that constantly denies aspiration. The story follows her from adolescence to maturity, ending with the depression years of 1933-4, contemporary with the writing of the novel. The Scots town is no doubt similar to the Paisley were the writer was brought up and lived at the time of writing. It is not a 'socialist' book, but a story of working class struggle that includes scenes which comment on socialism. The heroine, Mary is not ideological but pragmatic. She has her own views, which she will argue dogmatically: these are not given as the author's views, and although we readers may understand how she has reached them, we also may not agree with them. They show rather a working class woman trying to work things out. Although this struggle is general, the background is Scottish in two main ways, the place of religion in the social fabric, and the use of the Glasgow dialect throughout the dialogue. The readerly ear tunes into this, and it is not a drawback.<br />
Young Mary walks out with Donald, a socialist whose dreams is to line up the bosses and shoot them. His mother was a socialist, his father a pacifist. He believed that the 1914-18 war was no concern of the working man. He didn't believe that private property was morally owned. Mary constantly nibbled away at his socialism and he constantly compromised, without changing deep down. He refused to sign up as soldier and was given a white feather. The story shows the pressure that Mary came under through her peer group, "the Table" [i.e. the women working at the same table].and hence the pressure she brought to bear on Donald. Such women's groups are called "the real parliament" where decisions are made whilst men focus on football, drink and work. Donald signed up and was killed within five days of arriving at the front. Ironically, as he became one of the boys, Mary didn't like what he had become. We see her gradually justifying her opinions to herself, and telling herself that their relationship would not have worked. The issue did not fully resolve itself to the end of the book.<br />
Mary worked in a cooked meat factory making veal, much as the author had done in his youth. She had a work ethic and a respect for her employer, whom she saw as a fellow worker (his lack of employer's drive led to bankruptcy, as Donald said it would). She was no shirker. Gradually she built up for herself a well-furnished sitting room in her father's house out of her earnings, ensuring its tidiness with dragon-like control even of her father. When she married Dan, this furniture was taken lock stock and barrel to her own house. She remembered times her parents had no furniture, having to tiptoe so neighbours did not realise they had no carpets, and was determined to ensure she could keep up appearances.<br />
By the time she married Dan she was emotionally hard and brittle. They had a girl and a boy. Dan was Labour, not, he said, a communist. She was impressed by his emphasis on the need for collective bargaining and declared a support for Labour politics. However, she believed that the unemployed were at fault for not seeking work, much because Dan had a relatively safe and protected job. However, when his shipyard closed down and he could not find a replacement job, she attempted a doorstep sales business. When he couldn't sell her stock, she took to the road herself and realised both the impossibility of her self-help plan, and that closures were not the worker's fault. She returned to her meat factory, which was already failing as the veal remained unsold. She noticed that processes were inefficient and forced the younger workers to work more efficiently, which resulted in finishing early rather than as before spreading the same work over the day. The factory folded. The owner was too soft hearted and should have raised efficiency and cut staff.<br />
The book reaches a crisis when her daughter failed to thrive and the doctor blamed under-nutrition because she was feeding her inappropriate foods. In this extract, the young doctor had given a passionate speech about social inequity and malnutrition:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Her cold determination shocked the man from his passion. He watched her curiously and saw the firm mouth, the burning eyes and that wide impressive forehead. From her he felt force and strength like an armour, a weapon thrusting. 'You've taught me a lesson, Doctor,' she said vibrantly. 'I was content to be like the others. I took what I got and made the best of it. I forgot for a while....But you've woke me up again. I drapped the fight but I can start again. Ther's money tae be had and I'll get it....If I have to work my flesh away....My bairns'll get what they need.' He was slightly shocked. He wished he had not let himself go. In this woman was a quality that made him apprehensive. She would stop at nothing, he thought; she is fierce as an animal. God help those who stand in her way. [p.261]</blockquote>
To provide the children with a more varied diet, Mary took a domestic job whilst Dan was 'on the Parish': this led to a court-case for fraud as this income was not declared. An official had spoken to the small son at the door and been told that his mother was at work. The court-case underlined how the system made it impossible to people to help themselves, and how current policies were leading to major child malnutrition in working class families. If you can't look after your family, Dan was told, they will be taken into care. They were fined £10; to pay Mary had to sell her furniture: she knew she was being swindled, but had no choice. Full circle. There the book ends.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-1470004883293886752013-04-22T09:12:00.000-07:002013-04-22T09:12:02.768-07:00Lawrence R. Bourne<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Lawrence R. Bourne - books on the sea in the 1920s and 1930s. If anyone knows any personal details about this writer please leave a comment. Stephen</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-67048129403400636092013-03-13T08:05:00.000-07:002013-03-13T08:05:17.910-07:00Glenshiels - James Lennox Kerr 1932<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I surveyed the various works of JLK some years ago (here at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/248">http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/248</a>) and am returning to his adult fiction in the 1930-40 period. He is noted as a Scottish socialist writer, which is vague enough to be not untrue.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;">Glenshiels (John Lane The Bodley Head, 1932) is an early work and rooted in his memories of childhood in Paisley near Glasgow. It is heralded as an outstanding Scottish novel by such as J B Priestley and Compton Mackenzie. It went into a second impression in 1932. It is now totally forgotten, such is the fickleness of public taste.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">It is a story of a working class family in a small Scottish town, alert always to what other people might say about them, and keen to put on a prosperous face. The author ran away to sea just from such a place in 1916. The plot has a circularity, as we shall see, as class attitudes are reproduced across generations.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The dramatis personae are: Hector Mackinley (his first name never again mentioned) who lived with his wife and family in a three roomed tenement. Daughter Winnie was 16, son Sam aged 8. Mackinley was a bombastic bully, without a pleasant thing to say to or about his wife, and threatening to thrash his children, even spanking his daughter's naked bottom in the street. We never learn Mrs Mackinley's first name. The family relationship was based on fear. Mackinley also bullied other men, being particularly hard on 'Socialists' who in his view supported scroungers. His 'besting' of a Socialist supporter in the early pages returns throughout the book as a sort of chorus. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The opening scene is of the Town going to church, in their best clothes and putting on their best airs and graces. This Sunday is described in ritual terms, the procession to church, the stilted conversations, the behaviour in the service, the thanking of the minister, and the procession home. This was something that is 'done' without any involvement of niceness or ethics. Bullying the socialist is part of the Mackinley Sunday ritual, as Socialists are clearly ungodly.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The after church walk also reveal attitudes and prejudices. One side of the road was considered posher than the other - you could expect very little from the folks 'over there'. Although Mrs M expressed concern about the poor bairns in the streets, Mr M had a very clear view: </span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">"Mackinley, to whom such poverty only made more conscious of his own worthiness, grunted impatiently, "It's their own fault ...they had as much chance as others. If they spent less in the public houses..."</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The story follows Sam into adolescence, meeting Agnes and becoming a street lad. Then part 3 follows Winnie, as a shop assistant (a job she enjoys) walking out with friends and becoming the target for a grotesque lad John, a butcher's apprentice (as JLK had been once). We are not told, but get the impression, that he raped her and she fell pregnant. Although he was not pleasant even when courting, John considered himself trapped (the pregnancy was clearly Winnie's fault, done deliberately to catch him) and most surly. The wedding had to be rushed, the pregnancy never admitted but understood by everyone. Mackinley funded a lavish wedding, not out of affection but for public show. Sam got drunk and spoilt all that - we never hear the consequnces. Winnie had to give up work on marriage. Her husband John was the same bully her father was, and the same stultifying bore, to be scivied for, pampered, but never loved in return.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The story ends with a hard edge, Winnie realising that the housewife's life was very boring, and her mother visiting. Mrs M asked her outright when the baby was due. After she left, Winnie broke down, sobbing:</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">"The auld bitch!" she cried, despairingly. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;">"The auld bitch... she knew all the time".</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;">Curtain, the book ends with that expression of family tenderness. Nevertheless, Mrs M is presented as the person to be most pitied, with the realisation that her pointless life would be reproduced by her daughter Winnie.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-50622160033347958882011-01-04T13:57:00.000-08:002011-01-05T00:47:36.786-08:00Compton MacKenzie, Rockets GalorePlanning a trip to the Outer Hebrides, I came across <i>Rockets Galore</i>, the sequel to <i>Whisky Galore</i>, the story of what happened to a cargo of whisky wrecked on the Toddays near the Uists that was riotously filmed. <i>Rockets Galore</i> is a farce, true, but also a political satire. I will be brief with the story so I can comment on the satire. The government of the day (1957) wishes to set up a a rocket base and training camp in the Hebredean islands of Todday (Erisay). Such a base was set up in the Uists. To do this they must terminate the tenancies of crofters and resettle them elsewhere. Some locals can see a profit in it, others (such as those about to lose their homes) are opposed. There are public meetings, visits by bureaucrats and politicians. It is actually a fait accompli, and consultation is for no purpose. Nevertheless, government plans are thwarted. The locals realise that they become number one targets for Russian missiles; and also that their way of life would be destroyed. Readers are reminded of other imperial disasters - Nasser in Egypt, Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus.<br />
<br />
There is a history in Scotland of clearance from crofts, often by burning families out. The politicians are unaware of people as people - they are just pawns to be moved around. Politicians are depicted as basically stupid and self-serving, hearing only what they want to hear. This is largely still true, as politicians are obsessed with their political futures. The hero of the book, Hugh changes sides and realises that politics is not an ethical way to earn a living. Sectarian religion (Catholics and Protestants) comes together, symbolised by the marriage of Hugh to a Catholic Irish folksinger. The Catholic priest sets an ethical position: rockets, praised as deterrents by governments, are designed to kill en masse. As all sides build deterrents, the chance of world disaster is increased. It is much better to talk.I remember the period well through boyhood memories in Lincolnshire. A nearby WW2 aerodrome became the base for Bloodhound surface to air missiles produced by the Bristol Aircraft Company with Ferranti's help. About 2 dozen stood pointing east, the central missile warhead clustered around with rocket burners. MacKenzie describes them as obsolete, so that the government wanted to sell them to NATO. By the end, it is clear that political decisions can and ought to be challenged. Civil disobedience works. (Machinery is sabotaged, food and accommodation are refused). But finally, it is not the justice of the case which wins, it is the human obsession for rarity, as hordes descend to find rare birds.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-31454825462927333072010-09-21T13:09:00.000-07:002010-09-21T13:10:49.454-07:00Eileen Nearne SOEThe funeral took place today of Eileen Nearne in Torbay<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-11309418"> (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-11309418</a>). Eileen was an SOE agent who chose to keep this fact a secret throughout her life.<br />
<br />
In Sarah Helm's <i>A Life In Secrets: the Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE</i> Vera, the home-based controller of agents, toured Europe after the war to trace what happened to lost agents. Some had died in action, others were murdered in extermination camps. Eileen escaped from Ravensbruck, and told of two other English girls who escaped. She was picked up at the end of the war by the Americans so found her story far-fetched and fanciful. Vera knew however that the parachute drop, radio communications and work with the resistance were absolutely true. In camp, she worked in the fields, then as slave labour in a munitions factory, and later on 12 hour days as a road builder. It was then that she and some French friends hid in a forest and were protected by a local priest until the Americans came.<br />
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What would we all do if we knew that world freedom depended on what we personally did or did not do? The men and women of SOE and all other services, some paying with their lives, have bequeathed us the free world that we enjoy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-54897823752673430822010-08-02T23:56:00.000-07:002010-08-03T00:05:02.190-07:00Flying Officer XDuring the second world war, the concept of war artist included writers and poets. I have written elsewhere in this blog about the war poet John Pudney, whom "Flying Officer X" credits as his mentor "whose friendly watchfulness and greater experience in practical Air Force matters saved both them and myself from various pitfalls" (Author's Note, 1952 Evensford Edition). The anonymous "Flying Officer X" stories were morale boosters for both air force personnel and the public, dedicated to Hilary St. George Saunders the RAF historian. Flying Officer X was in real life HE Bates (1905-1974), the novelist, with an RAF commission. Stationed with Bomber Command, flying Stirlings, he refined, by talking to crews and groundstaff, their particular experiences into short stories published weekly in <i>News Chronicle</i> in 1942, bringing out the real story of battle. The first volume of collected stories was called <i>The Greatest People in the World</i> after a story of the same name. The pilot is from a poor agricultural family, who paid his way through Grammar School to become a Pilot Officer. [He would actually have been a Sergeant Pilot, not coming from Public School]. He hears that pilots are the greatest people in the world, but after his parents are bombed and killed, comes to realise that it is the common working people who farm the land who best deserve this description. The second volume had the title <i>How Sleep the Brave: </i>the story of that name follows a Stirling crew after ditching in the North Sea, surviving snow, ice and burns in the attempt to reach England again. The last sentence hints at bravery: "and they will go out again". <i>The Beginning of Things</i> describes bow amputation (of an arm) can mark the beginning of a new life, not the end. The main character flies again with prosthetic arm full of clever gadgets. A edition of both collections was called <i>Something in the Air</i> (Cape, Knopf). Over 100,000 copies in all were sold, though HE Bates did not earn royalties for them. In other RAF postings he wrote <span lang="en-gb"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times;"><span lang="en-gb"><i>There's Freedom in the Air </i>for HMSO, <i>The Night Battle of Britain </i>(never published) and <i>The Battle of the Flying Bomb</i> (published only after rediscovery in the Public Records Office in 1994). The Flying Officer X stories were reissued in paperback by Vintage Classics (Random House) in 2002.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-35760781910722797722010-07-31T11:53:00.000-07:002010-08-02T02:04:12.871-07:00James Hilton 1900-1956.A few thoughts on <i>Nothing So Strange </i>1948<i>.</i> James Hilton is best known for <i>Goodbye Mr Chips</i>, a story drawn from his school experiences, and <i>Far Horizons</i> with his great invention Shangri La. He was a Hollywood screen writer as well as a novelist, who smoked himself to an early death. <i>Nothing So Strange </i>is about the war, set in wartime. Its theme is waste of talent through unreasonable suspicion. A talented physicist for very complex reasons was working for a pro-Nazi boss in Vienna, later in Berlin, just before war was declared. He was therefore ignored both as a scientist and a pilot in the airforce, considered to hot to handle. However his work if recognized in Germany could have produced a nuclear bomb by 1943, and equally could have contributed to the American effort. Instead, he was under psychiatric care, hounded both by psychiatrists and security forces who would have been more fruitfully employed elsewhere. His mentor through this was his student, probably to become his wife/partner. She knows, as we the reader knows, that he had an affair with her mother, but he does not know she knows, but her father does. This all keeps the war reflection steaming hot. He had a guilty secret, that he finally reveals: not murder or adultery, or anything so predictable. But he had falsified his data before leaving Berlin so his discoveries could not be misused. As a scientist, this compromise whilst necessary was a matter of shame.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-53602455788369386032010-07-28T03:08:00.000-07:002010-08-02T01:56:46.670-07:00SOE and Vera AtkinsA recent trip to Cornwall brought me to Zennor, home of the <i>Tinners Arms </i>with Tinners Ale, the church with the mermaid, and a small Cornish life museum. DH Lawrence had been here in 1915-16 with his German wife Frieda, cousin of Baron Manfred von Richthofen the air ace. Not a combatant on health grounds, the locals were suspicious and persuaded them to leave. The story, and the bitterness of the experience, is found in <i>Kangaroo.</i> In the church is a memorial to the Burma Star Association, with a book to inscribe memories and appreciation. The Association has been very active in linking and championing those soldiers with traumatic memories from their youth. Percy our former neighbour, was one of these, buried eventually with full Burma Star honours. The book tells a similar story of servicemen remembered but now dead. One piece of graffiti condemned war, preferring I guess to live in a fascist dictatorship.<br />
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The stimulus for this post is my fruitless search for the gravestone of Vera Atkins. I remember seeing it some years ago, but could not find it again. Vera was the key administrator at Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Baker Street. Jewish, a refugee from Romania, former family name Rosenberg, she always had to cope with feelings of vulnerability. She ran operations involving both men and women, but it was the SOE women who caught the popular imagination after the war. The film on Odette and book on Madeleine have given this group of women mythic status. Noor Inayat Khan, from a Sufi family, alias Nora Baker, alias Madeleine is a personal favorite, a woman with deformed feet because of foot binding as a child, a pacifist who refused to take weapons on a mission, and who refused to reveal any information under torture. The reality is that they were doing a dangerous job, for reasons of their own, because of ideals they were prepared to die for. Any some of them did, either on the ground or in Ravensbruck concentration camp, or Buchanwald. After the war she hunted down their killers and worked with the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. She chose to be buried with her brother Guy in Zennor. The story is well told by Sarah Helm, <i>A Life in Secrets.</i> The official historian of SOW is MRD Foot.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-49886762234929755012010-07-23T14:00:00.000-07:002010-07-28T02:16:11.278-07:00Heming and Marsh againChance finds, bought together today in Cirencester were Jack Heming's <i>Blue Wings</i> (1938) and DE Marsh's <i>The Airmen of the Island</i> (1945). Since the dealer had bought them as a pair, his source must have known the connection, that they were husband and wife. Dorothy Eileen Marsh was the birthname of Mrs (Jack) Heming who used many pen-names. It started as a means of surviving the depression, a visit to London, and perhaps to WE Johns, told them that the future was in aeroplane stories for children. Jack tended to be more action-oriented and Eileen more relationship focused - although Eileen was fully capably or writing blood and thunder action stories, particularly using the Guy Dempster alias, war stories for boys. See my other blogs on this family via the labels.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69FYU62-V-E37ZRBQmrMx9KSW7VJ3-onv8EplZ0ohKxxmw8iHXEVh85Al2h7JPid-HIBmy0v43F54yC8jMRmR1V1o0gB2ZmsknVXrPeEhwJdRKtcc3X0jEIE0BUswL6HLV2lKBBNtfdU/s1600/MarshAirmenIsland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69FYU62-V-E37ZRBQmrMx9KSW7VJ3-onv8EplZ0ohKxxmw8iHXEVh85Al2h7JPid-HIBmy0v43F54yC8jMRmR1V1o0gB2ZmsknVXrPeEhwJdRKtcc3X0jEIE0BUswL6HLV2lKBBNtfdU/s200/MarshAirmenIsland.jpg" width="159" /></a><i>The Airmen of the Island </i>focuses on an Orkney teenager Rob Ker (age 17) who is master of a tiny island, Megg, who by saving a ditched Australian pilot early in the war found his way into flying with Coastal Command. The story featured Sunderland Flying Boats, introduced 1938. Germans take over Megg to fortify it and threaten Scapa Flow. Rob escapes to warn the RAF and a counter attack takes the island back, which then is fortified as an RAF base. But, the Germans take it over again... The first Nazis were callous and brutal; the second group were more polite (with "false politeness") - "you fought a good fight". The dead are accepted and not mourned. "Bill and Cleaver are gone" - "That's too bad"... "Let me gather our dead". The other planes at the base are Defiants, which are depicted as newer and deadlier than Spitfires. In fact they were not so. Built by Boulton and Paul, they had gun turrets rather than forward guns, so 109s soon realised that they could attack head-on with relative impunity. In the story, 3 Defiants were enough to knock out a flight of bombers and their attendant fighters. In real life, Defiants were put onto night-patrol duty, at which the excelled. The story also introduces an aircraft carrier and Navy forces, with Swordfish and Skua planes - the Fleet Air Arm, not so named in the book. This is a favorite topic in her Guy Dempster thrillers. One other detail, an occasional character is named Carter, probably Eileen's best known pen-name (Dorothy Carter).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiziv2VvmnB3EIj9LU-Wz5mzUClv_d8EujYbMdW2pHnd3fC-cfjMEWoeOoRP2p7Xg2iCwe4ZQ676idmTBIqeAPwSrh2a-BFHg7MzHaszMfS8dAIqiKDSARU63dslRcbpSlOUz6Id_9Zdeo/s1600/bluewings+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiziv2VvmnB3EIj9LU-Wz5mzUClv_d8EujYbMdW2pHnd3fC-cfjMEWoeOoRP2p7Xg2iCwe4ZQ676idmTBIqeAPwSrh2a-BFHg7MzHaszMfS8dAIqiKDSARU63dslRcbpSlOUz6Id_9Zdeo/s200/bluewings+cover.jpg" width="183" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcbw5jZOewdtOFM__ZB5p84_XmG0ahwzqGnOIWsblK3C1mIbYkCBBWlnUelKv0Z5Fvp2VzQquNNnWl_lNEoeViha36TLuDoPr1tSQPytNhqKcVZiWxZZLPi-hWPs1urbx8TSAhiwtelc/s1600/BlueWings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcbw5jZOewdtOFM__ZB5p84_XmG0ahwzqGnOIWsblK3C1mIbYkCBBWlnUelKv0Z5Fvp2VzQquNNnWl_lNEoeViha36TLuDoPr1tSQPytNhqKcVZiWxZZLPi-hWPs1urbx8TSAhiwtelc/s200/BlueWings.jpg" width="180" /></a><br />
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Jack wrote less, and paused as he joined the forces in 1939. His <i>Blue Wings</i> is uncomfortable reading, as four WW1 flying aces and one youth, Ray, fly to Spain to support the "nationalists" (Franco's fascist insurgents) against the elected socialist ("communist") government who are depicted as Russian inspired, with a People's Committee to punish failure or opposition. Jack was anti-communist rather than pro-fascist - their side are termed 'nationalist' and the government are seen as Russian invaders. At the end of unlikely and intrepid adventures in that blood-thirsty civil war, they returned home alive and joined the RAF. De Havilland Dragons (biplane, built 1932) and Mew Gulls (1936) are the planes mentioned. The Percival Mew Gull was a single engined racing plane and only 6 were built, top speed over 250 mph - hot news in air racing when the story was being written. The back blue plane on the cover is a rough approximation, and the illustration on page 85. Why was one of these highly expensive machines owned by a youngster and based in a temporary county council airfield? And then for a second to arrive there... The illustration on page 197 is perhaps a biplane Dragon. The twin engined blue monoplane on the dustjacket is a Monospar (ST10 perhaps, picture below).<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ir2PO-Rqawj-_W9d2GPF1jeVtJ896DKCDiMYpCKAJ_M85EQHQolv_vzxsEoYVUp5KRQHfzl1qGrFHAC7OsKy4oQRM5nIZv59PUfB_eeH6-03BZ5EUAZbQnKY4lbPOXpR_u6gvOIyEvo/s1600/Monospar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ir2PO-Rqawj-_W9d2GPF1jeVtJ896DKCDiMYpCKAJ_M85EQHQolv_vzxsEoYVUp5KRQHfzl1qGrFHAC7OsKy4oQRM5nIZv59PUfB_eeH6-03BZ5EUAZbQnKY4lbPOXpR_u6gvOIyEvo/s200/Monospar.jpg" width="200" /></a>The red biplanes (make unidentified) belong to the Spanish socialist government and carry the Spanish roundel. In the story most are flown by Russians. <br />
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Jack's story does not in fact glorify war but gets young readers ready for a war that by 1937 was inevitable. WE Johns announced this constantly in <i>Popular Flying</i>, emphasising the need for the government to prepare. Ray entered the civil war for adventure, without any political ideals. He soon sees war as 'conscienceless'. Dogfights may be a game - a Russian ace comes down to give him some more petrol so they can carry on - but it is a deadly game, the objective to down planes and probably kill the pilot. The leaders of both sides drool with anger and solve problems by killing. War's horrors are hinted at, and war itself condemned subliminally but constantly. A boy needs skill and a level head to navitage through with higher ideals. They all end up joining the RAF preparing for the world war to counter aggression that is invariably coming. <br />
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Eileen unfortunately died early, in 1948, having brought up four children as well as writing 120 books. Jack later wrote after Eileen's death under her pen-names for a few volumes between 1948 and 1960.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-3275347288794543482010-07-15T13:49:00.000-07:002010-07-15T13:49:03.371-07:00Major Charles Gilson 1878-1943<i>On Secret Service</i>, 1935. Humphrey Milford/Oxford University Press. A first world war spy story in which a cell of German spies set up a beacon to guide Zeppelins to bomb Whitehall. Felix Von Arnheim, German masterspy, alias Hubert Hamilton uses his Old Etonian background and contacts to lead the group. Daniel Wansborough, British counter-espionage officer, is tasked to discover and neutralise the plot. Young George Thurlow is kidnapped after apprehending a spy dropped from a Zeppelin, and works out the plot from the inside.This is pre-parachute so the spy has to be lowered in an observation car on a mile-long wire.<br />
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Gilson had been writing stories for boys since before the first world war, cutting his authorial teeth in Boys Own Paper (BOP). His writing is jingoistic, blaming the Germans for the war and heroising the allies (this book shows cooperation with the French). A pawnbroker, Israel Levinski is "a Russian Pole. A Jew" (strange labelling!) and his 'hooked nose' makes the stereotype clear (198-9). He is dirty, in a dingy house, but the detail is positive and sensitive. He is not a money-grabber but a poor man trying to survive, a refugee. In contrast, Lord Freyling is a wastrel, a gambler, who betrays his country to pay off his gambling debts. The story follows George first, then cuts to Daniel's investigation, joining up when Daniel taps on the window of the room in which George is imprisoned (137, 204).<br />
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Gilson's Germans were Nazis, not 1914 period pieces. The espionage threat was real and modern, and Gilson set the trend for spy hunts which dominated children's fiction until after 1945. He was nearing the end of his writing life and was increasingly affected by the illness which ended his life. But his writing was truely multicultural, and warned vividly of the dangers of totalitarianism, whether Nazi or Japanese. His <i>Out of the Nazi Clutch</i> (1940) was a remarkable book to be penned at the outbreak of war. A schoolboy Walter, studying in Germany rescued a Christian boy, Otto Spohr, a quarter Jewish, being stoned by a mob. Gilson is, as usual part teacher-preacher, blaming the Nazis for their policy of hatred, and condemning thier followers for blind obedience. Walter's hosts actually condemn themselves - " is a terrible disgrace on Germany... but what can we do?": their son is in Hitler Youth. Walter saves the Spohrs from Buchanwald concentration camp, that "place of torture" for people whose only crime was being Jewish. No trial -"beaten, scourged and kicked, many of them not to be seen again alive" (92-3). All this in 1939-40, when even the British government were denying it. My thanks to Owen Dudley Edwards for a lively discussion of Gilson in <i>British Children's Fiction in the Second World War</i>, especially pages 561-7.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-2217645867656091972010-03-31T05:58:00.000-07:002010-03-31T07:00:17.162-07:00Royal Scot 6144<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh745RMmzW7TCsvNZyEUpgYSHsPfFeCUP_Uwi2MW1QYIlpnEk2eLcov3Ls2oP5SVa791U1fIV_9-PfAe3_aQEsSbtGVBfbz3Ru7Kxz-Us4AN77bBuygHcWsuYKcWbC7fOQf9pHwALGBPQU/s1600/Dean+Royal+Scot.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 219px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh745RMmzW7TCsvNZyEUpgYSHsPfFeCUP_Uwi2MW1QYIlpnEk2eLcov3Ls2oP5SVa791U1fIV_9-PfAe3_aQEsSbtGVBfbz3Ru7Kxz-Us4AN77bBuygHcWsuYKcWbC7fOQf9pHwALGBPQU/s320/Dean+Royal+Scot.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454782915105896418" border="0" /></a><br />The cover of this Dean's Jolly Youngster Book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The First Class Train Book</span> dates from 1931. The boiler shape of this Royal Scot makes it look more like a Patriot than the rebuilt Royal Scots we remember, but in fact the Patriot Class came later, from 1930. These engines were destined for the Euston-Glasgow expresses. The first 50 locomotives were built by the North British Locomotive Company, Glasgow in 1927 to plans devised down south, from 6100 <span style="font-style: italic;">Royal Scot</span> to 6149, originally <span style="font-style: italic;">Lady of the Lake</span>. Others were added in 1930, built elsewhere (especially Derby). The nameplate of 6144 cannot easily be read but was <span style="font-style: italic;">Ostrich. </span>The first 24 of the class were named mainly after army regiments and by 1935-6, more regiment names were added, replacing the original names. By 1948, 6144 (which became 46144) carried the name <span style="font-style: italic;">The Honourable Artillery Company</span> but there is a mystery: the 1944 Ian Allen loco-spotters <span style="font-style: italic;">British Locomotives ABC </span> records it as having no name, the only unnamed locomotive of the class. Is this a typographical error, or has something strange happened? The engine was based at Liverpool Edge Hill (8A), rebuilt in 1945 with superheated tapered boiler, and scrapped in January 1964.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-81311834746931149052010-02-22T02:18:00.000-08:002010-03-31T03:58:03.692-07:00David Severn - obituaryDavid Unwin died in 11th February 2010 after a brief illness, aged 91, and was cremated in Golders Green Crematorium. The son of the publisher Stanley Unwin, he was born on 3.12.1918. It was as the writer for children, David Severn, that he earned early fame, his first book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Rick Afire</span> coming out in 1942, the first of his 'Crusoe Books' featuring children's friendship with a young accountant called Robinson (hence 'Crusoe') who was escaping the office for a holiday in the open air. The writer and critic Geoffrey Trease once wrote (1964:141) that David Severn was an outstanding pioneer of the holiday themes after Arthur Ransome. These early books were outstanding, examples of outdoor adventure by resourceful and independent children with positive descriptions of a Romany group. His next series with the Warner family shows a similar free spirit, with more of an interest in gymkhanas and the country set. A journey through Africa produced <span style="font-style: italic;">My Foreign Correspondent through Africa</span> in 1951, 20 illustrated news-sheets which were part of a wider series. He began to experiment with a number of different ideas. <span style="font-style: italic;">Dream Gold </span>(1949) is a psychological thriller. Two boys begin to dream of events 300 years ago, connected to a wrecked ship in Cornwall. They begin to dream together in a way that transports them to a desert island where sailors are coming to blows. Each takes on the personality of their ancestor and fights out the dispute again. This risks the lives of both, and only one survives. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Drumbeats! </span>pupils find a magic drum which they discover had been stolen by an ill-fated expedition to Africa in 1935. When Oliver beats it, the children are transported back to 1935 Africa and witness the lost expedition. The timeslip presents deadly dangers for the present, causing a fire in school. In <span style="font-style: italic;">The Future Took Us</span> (1957) a time slip into 3000AD, a religious dictatorship (actually the headmaster's alter ego) whose holy book was a maths primer and who thought up mathematical executions ruled the land. He and his henchmen were overcome. Then came a story of a boy brought up by foxes and behaved like a fox. His young girl saviour did not seem to mind his nakedness. This sense of psycho-magic never left him, and two of his last books concerned a ghost girl, and a magic toy castle that became real.<br />David Unwin's early books were a much loved part of children's series fiction. His more challenging works featured in the school curriculum for a while. As tastes and publishers ambitions changed in the 1970s, he found less opportunities to be published and his last work was his autobiography, in 1982, <span style="font-style: italic;">Fifty Years With Father. </span> Earlier, in the 1950s, he had tried his hand at adult fiction. These focused on wives who ruled the roust, influencing politics (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Governor's Wife</span>) as well as domestic life (<span style="font-style: italic;">A View of the Heath</span>).<br /><br />David Severn was involved in the early days of writing about ghosts, magic and the supernatural in a naturalistic way. Magic is presented as part of life. We can all slip into other times and other worlds, and many writers have done this since. But David Severn concentrated on the psychology of this. Dream walking out of the body experiences, reliving deep obsessions which continue to damage the lives of descendants. Treachery sticking to objects (the drum) and needing to be resolved and avenged. The totalitarian power of teachers and headteachers. The savagery shown to animals (foxes) highlighted only by making the fox cub a human. These titles from his middle period were thought provoking indeed. His last two children's books highlighted magic or the supernatural. A boy's obsession with a dead girl is described as giving strength to her ghost, to the extent that others saw her as a real girl. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Girl in the Grove</span> is deeply psychological, with a brilliant twist at the end - the earlier family history in the effective management of slaves (a euphemism for working the slaves to death). The Grove, which typified the moneyed class, had blood on their family hands so could not rest in peace. His last book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wishing Bone</span>, is great fun - what to do with three wishes. The wishes go wrong because of careless speech, but in the end making the wish is seem as itself the first step towards fulfilment. To wish to be friends with enemies is the first step towards repairing bridges. Story-book wishes have horrendous consequences, as the children get embroiled in siege and battle. But real-life wishes are a healing mechanism important in creating a harmonious world.<br /><br />David Unwin leaves me with happy memories both of reading his work as an academic and corresponding with him. It is time for some of his titles to be resurrected.<br /><br />See further: <a href="http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/236">http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/236</a> for a detailed description of his books.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-79685657867455878452010-02-21T02:44:00.000-08:002010-02-21T02:45:57.451-08:00Golding, Lord of the Flies.Readers of <span style="font-style: italic;">Lord of the Flies</span> or viewers of the film, will remember the twins. They were real kids in Golding's class in Bishop Wordsworth School in Salisbury in the late 1940 to early 1950s. One twin is my neighbour; the other's funeral took place on Friday. Rest in peace and love to the family.<br /><br />See also <a href="http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2009/11/tony-brown-and-william-golding.html">http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2009/11/tony-brown-and-william-golding.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-566636188890160796.post-75427174628148466552010-02-12T10:06:00.000-08:002010-02-25T08:39:16.359-08:00Escaping Wartorn EuropeThis post describes three books written between 1940 and 1945 which describes children fleeing through France in the early years of the war. They are: Olive C <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Dougan</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Schoolgirls in Peril </span>(1944); Agnes M. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Miall</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Schoolgirl Fugitives</span> (1942); and Nevil Chute, <span style="font-style: italic;">Pied Piper </span>(1942).<br />Olive <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Dougan</span> also wrote <span style="font-style: italic;">The Schoolgirl Refugees </span>in 1940. Very scarce. I am still looking.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Dougan</span> tells the story of a school in a Flemish speaking area just before 1939. The Nazis were pressing into Holland and Belgium. The school moves to Brussels and is soon closed down, and the Head arrested. The main character Sally overhears a traitor's plot to allow the Nazi army to invade. Sally is thereafter a marked girl and sent to her fascist uncles in Brittany with her young sister Betty. Their father is a journalist collecting sensitive evidence, a target for the Nazis. There they are abused and miserable. Escape routes exist in the area and all goes well until an airman is helped to escape and his clothes and parachute are found. The sisters have to flee on foot or with local help to Vichy France and towards the Spanish border. A <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">bete</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">noir</span> is Tilda <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Weil</span>, a German girl with serious Nazi relatives. She boasts of victory, and spies against her school and against a Jewish fellow pupil with links to the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">resistance</span>. Tilde is emotionally fond of little Betty, and after her new husband is killed by the SS for protesting, she crosses over to help the girls to escape to Spain. The Headmistress is already there. They make it back to England for a grand reunion, after the Americans hand entered the war but before D day. Oh, and the girls are reunited also with their parents.<br /><br />The detail of anti-Nazi feeling is outstanding - the little things ordinary people will do to undermine the enemy. The Nazis are painted as a powerful elite who rule by fear and repression. Ordinary Germans are decent, especially when they understand the reality of what is going on. This is propaganda; most ordinary Germans did not cross the road to defend victims since their own lives were endangered by doing so.<br /><br />Then endgame is disappointing. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Prolonged</span> struggle happens until the last few chapters, then, all of a rush they make it to Spain, find a boat, and arrive in England. This part is very much a 'happy ever after' epilogue.<br />Unfortunately my copy was bound without pages 97-112. I will be grateful if anyone can send me photocopies.<br /><br />Agnes M <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Miall</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Schoolgirl Fugitives.</span><br />Kay, aged 14, and elder cousin Reba, 19, in school in southern France, is faced, as the German army <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">takes</span> over Belgium, to set out on a 360 mile walk to Bordeaux. "Happy go lucky" parents were away working in Canada, not believing that a war was in the offing. French relatives lived in the thick of the fighting, so Bordeaux gave them a chance to find a boat to England. They would have to go alone, unescorted, and travel light, leaving most of their possessions behind. The first leg was in an ambulance: the roads are crowded with refugees, so main roads had to be avoided and slow progress made on back roads. The refugees included children in tatters, with blisters, looking after babies. It was a vast line of mainly women and children. For Kay it was fun, different. They decide to keep off the main roads because German planes were machine gunning the refugees. They are fed at a farm, who lets them have the address of relatives further on. There is a strong theme of French kindness to the English, probably, the book thinks, because they were ashamed of letting their allies down. Unable to board a train (really cattle wagons) they took possession of two bicycles that had to be abandoned by people getting on the train. The train was machine-gunned so they had a narrow escape. Nazi planes machine gunning the trains and main roads become a significant theme, making the girls keep to the side roads. They were encouraged to avoid Bordeaux by what seemed to them later as a fifth columnist, spreading <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">despair</span> around. They almost ran into a German outpost, managing to pick up a German map which helped them. They find little Francoise, separated from her mother; and Kay gets lost. However, within a particularly surly group, Rebe was accused of being a German spy and locked up. Meanwhile Kay had stumbled over a man dressed as a German soldier, which after a nail-biting time turned out to be Eric, an escaping English soldier. They travel together, find Reba again, now imprisoned, and let her out and they all escape from that hateful town. Bordeaux is now closed, so there destination is a port near the Spanish border. Francoise's mother has left a letter indicating where to find her. The French government has meanwhile capitulated to the Germans, so there is no time to lose. On the coast, out swimming, they rescue a woman drowning after an attach of cramp, who Francoise soon identifies, of course, as her mother. Her mother's friends have a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">yacht</span> and they manage to leave safely.<br /><br />Nevil Shute, <span style="font-style: italic;">Pied Piper.</span><br />Shute, an aircraft engineer and founder/owner of Airspeed, wrote a novel a year throughout the 1930a to 1950s, and his war efforts reflect the anxieties of those days. Pied Piper tells the story of an elderly unpreposessing and unheroic man, Mr Howard, who decides to return to England from the French alps, but finds the trains disrupted and roads clogged. A simple journey takes on nightmare proportions. Moreover, he is persuaded to take two young children with him, Ronnie and Sheila, to relatives in England. This is a book for adults about children, not a story for children. The children are incumbrances, dependants, not young heroes as they would be in stories for children. At Dijon, 10 year old is added, Rose, trying to reach her father in London. Howard comes across as a man doing what he has to in times of trouble, a hero indeed but not heroic, often anxious, obsessed with the safety of his fishing tackle. On the road, Pierre joins them, a 7 year old being stoned by villagers as a German spy. (The French are described as an unpleasant rabble, for the most part). Then comes Willem a little Dutch boy, whose parents are blown to pieces when a Nazi Stuka bombs refugees on the road, the rear gunner laughing as he machine-gunned the hoards of women and children. Nicole joins the group in Chatres, the fiance of his dead son John, then a kitten. They eventually make it to the coast. A 10 year old Polish Jewish boy joins them, Marjan, to keep him from becoming a slave. There is a sticky moment near Brest when Mr Howard is arrested as a spy after a British success, and taken out to be shot (but we readers know from page 1 that he survived). The theme of the book is that the British take care of children even if they are not related, to the utter astonishment of the French and Germans. He is a Pied Piper in reverse, taking a group of children to safety - oh, and he makes them whistles from hazel twigs to represent the piper's pipes. Finally there is Anna, but for the twist at the end of the story that brought Anna into the group you will have to read the book for yourself.<br /><br />The representations of Germans are mixed - the typical soldier is tired and grey faced. No one laughed light-heartedly. The rear gunner shooting civilians is cock-a-hoop, laughing and excited. The Gestapo officer is brutal, harsh, cynical, not believing that a man would risk his own life for strangers, or that his daughter in America would willingly look after the waifs and strays. His son the tank commander, now dead, was annoyed that the road was clogged with refugees and happily shot at them to clear the road. There is no humanity, no fellow feeling or empathy. They were convinced of their own invincibility, sure they would be in London in six weeks. The representations of the British were that they are strong-minded and eccentric, moral to the point of self-sacrifice, ensuring that others are not implicated even if it was to their disadvantage. The French are self-seeking and short sighted for the most part, willing to stone a small boy as a spy, and to give away a Jewish labourer to the authorities. Helpful acts such as sailing them home had to be paid for, and to serve other selfish interests.<br /><br />Postscript: in 1940, households in Britain received a government circular on a flimsy piece of thin A5 paper, What to do if the invasion happens. They are told to stay at home and wait for guidance, do not clog the roads so the army cannot get around to fight the enemy. The French example is given: if you become refugees on the road, you will be shot at by Nazi aircraft and tanks.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4