Westward Ho! part 4

 

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Westward Ho! part 3

 

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Westward Ho! part 2

 

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Westward Ho! part 1

Based on the novel by Charles Kingsley with artwork by Bill Baker. I'll leave the book to speak for itself over the next couple of weeks – all I'll say here is that it's the only novel ever to inspire the founding of a Devon village (the only town in the UK to contain an exclamation mark in its name)

Kingsley you'll probably know better as the author of The Water Babies, Hereward the Wake or perhaps The Heroes, based on Greek myths but Westward Ho! was the novel chosen in 1925 by the BBC as the first to ever be adapted onto the wireless.

 

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Killer Crabs!

Guy N. Smith's classic series of killer crustaceans on the rampage. Was Jaws the inspiration for these "nature on the rampage" books that came out in the late 1970s? I've never worked out the timeline. James Herbert's The Rats pre-dated the Crabs by at least a year, but Herbert has said that he was inspired by Dracula rather than Jaws.

Night of the Crabs
New English Library 0450-02942-5, July 1976, 144pp, 60p.

The Welsh coast basks in summer tranquility. Then the 'drownings' begin.
__But not until the monstrous crustaceans crawl ashore, their pincers poised for destruction, does the world understand the threat it faces.
__A seafood cocktail for the strongest stomachs.

Killer Crabs
New English Library 0450-03817-3, May 1978, 158pp, 75p.

Their claws were strong enough to snap a man in half. Their shells were impenetrable, even by a six-inch naval gun. Their eyes glowed with malevolence, and as they tore their victims limb from limb they seemed to grin with sadistic delight. Never before had the world seen such an army.
__They started with the odd fisherman. Then they tackled bigger boats. Finally they moved on to land, and spread death and terror before them. The occupants of Hayman Island had just one hope: if they could find the crabs' spawning ground they might have a chance. There were three weeks before the full moon. After that the crabs' numbers would be beyond control and they would be truly invincible...

The Origin of the Crabs
New English Library 0450-04388-6, June 1979.
---- [2nd imp.] March 1984, 157pp, £1.50.

Rouse suddenly let out a piercing scream releasing him from the paralysis of sheer terror in which those malevolent red eyes had held him. In panic he turned and tried to scramble up the slippery rockface. But his feet could not grip; slowly he began sliding back down, ever closer to the nightmarish form that was rapidly approaching, its huge claws waving in the air, its powerful jaws opening and closing in anticipation...

Crabs on the Rampage
New English Library 0450-05251-6, September 1981, 157pp, £1.25. Cover photo: Bruce Coleman Ltd. (Colour recreation: Lawrence Back)

They had come back.
One man only saw them and him they killed, hunted him down through the dense reed beds, trapped him, drove him mad with terror before they pulled him to pieces and ate every bloodied shred of his body.
__And then it was quiet again for a little while.
__Until they came ashore again, in their hundreds, their bodies reeking with the malignant, cancerous disease that was within them. The disease that was driving them mad with pain, mad to kill, to wipe out every living thing in their path.
__On that holiday beach were hundreds of men, women and children. Food.

Crabs' Moon
New English Library 0450-05694-5, April 1984.

An armourned underwater army, they lay off-shore, watching, waiting. Then, moon-driven, coldly mad in their need to destroy, to kill, to eat, they edged forward.
__The quiet night sounds: gentle waves lapping and hissing on the shingle, the warm on-shore breeze ruffling through the grassy dunes, lights, laughter and music from the unsuspecting holiday camp, the diesel thump, thump of a last, late fishing boat.
__Tensed, shuddering and eager in their hunger, they lurched out of the water. In their hundreds, huge and evil, they crawled, lumbered up the beach, feeling their way towards their prey.
__The new night sounds, the clicking of giant claws, the scraping of giant bodies across the rocks, screams of terror, screams of agony suddenly stilled, the crunch of bones, the sickening sucking and munching as they gorged on human flesh.
__The crabs had invaded once more...

Crabs: The Human Sacrifice
New English Library 0450-42139-2, 1988.

P. Hoole Jackson

The curiously named Hoole Jackson was brought to my attention by Jim Mackenzie, who writes about children's books (Journey to the Hidden Kingdoms, Another Country), who asked if I knew anything about him/her. I didn't, but you know me . . . I like a challenge.

Thankfully, it didn't take long to discover that Hoole was preceded by an initial, 'P', i.e. P. Hoole Jackson, and digging around via a Google search and in various sites turns up some interesting hits. Putting together all the jigsaw pieces I was able to gather, I've compiled the following.

Percy Hoole Jackson was born in Prestwich, Lancashire, in September 1892, the son of Henry Jackson and his wife, the former Edith Hoole, daughter of John, a bank cashier, and Elizabeth Hoole. Edith died in 1892, almost certainly in childbirth, aged 24, and it seems likely that her husband, the much older Henry (thirty years her senior) died within a few years. Percy appears to have been raised by his uncle Oswald Hoole (a bank clerk) and his aunt Sarah, with whom he was living when the census for both 1901 and 1911 was taken. Oswald's family included two daughters, a son – all younger than Percy by some years – and his (Oswald's) widowed mother, Elizabeth. By 1911, Percy was working as a clerk for the Co-operative Society.

An account of Jackson's exploits during the Great War appeared in Everyman at War (1930) edited by C. B. Purdom, which can be found here. The book included the following about Jackson's wartime career: 

P. Hook Jackson joined the 6th Battalion Manchester Regt. (T.F.) in September 1914. Served in the Dardanelles campaign as a private soldier from May until October 1915. Invalided to Malta with slight wound and dysentery. 2nd Eastern General Hospital, Brighton, from November until January 1916.
__Rejoined Division in Egypt in May 1916. Served in the Sinai campaign as private soldier and scout. Took part in battle of Romani, when the Turkish second attempt on the Suez Canal was defeated with heavy loss to the enemy. Forced marches and desert fighting.
__In February sent to France. Served as scout to the brigade. Wounded and gassed in the Battle of Ypres of September to October 1917. Returned to battalion and served again as sniper and scout. Granted commission as second lieutenant in 1918, and attached to the Lancashire Fusiliers.

Wrote songs and verse that was broadcast on the wireless in Manchester as early as 1927 and his stories appeared irregularly in the Manchester Guardian in 1928-43.

In the 1930s he lived at Brook Cottage, Combe-in-Teignhead, nr. Newton Abbot, Devon, and contributed to English Review, Country Life, Christmas Cracker, Woman's Magazine, Great War Adventures, The Price Budget for Boys (1939) and Illustrated.

Still contributing to publications like Country Life and the John Creasey Mystery Magazine in the 1960s.

Jackson died in Penzance, Cornwall, in 1976, aged 84. He was twice married: first to Hettie Jackson in 1917, who died in Newton Abbott in 1944, aged 54; Jackson had separated from his first wife and was already living with Elizabeth Jacka Harry, whom he married in 1944. They had four children: Edith Hoole Jackson (1934-1996), Leon H. Jackson (1938; m. Margaret A. Henson, 1964), Lewis H. Jackson (1941; m. Marjorie Trembach, 1961) and Vivian H. Jackson (1946; m. Nancy Blackwell, 1968). Elizabeth Hoole-Jackson (as she was listed), died in 1977, aged 72.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels
Maid o' the Moors. London, C. W. Daniel Co., 1924.
The League of the Cat, illus. Douglas Relf. London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1954.
Red Mask. London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1954.
Silent Takes the Trail, illus. Victor Bertoglio. London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1955.
Bird of Gold, illus. Charles Doughty. London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1956.
The Sign of the Glove, illus. Will Nickless. London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1957.
Silent and the Lost City, illus. James Moss. London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1959.

Verse
Thanksgiving. Selected poems from the published work of P. Hoole Jackson. London & New York, 1928.
Contemporary Lancashire Poetry, with others, ed. S. Fowler Wright. 1928,

Comic Cuts - 13 July 2012

I have been working on a thing for The Guardian most of the week – an obituary for their files, so I'll not say who it is about. Next week I'm back on the book.

What I can talk about is this: I've accidentally joined Facebook. I had no intention of joining. Don't get me wrong: I'm not anti-social networks or a luddite when it comes to new communication tools, although I still don't own  a mobile phone. I sit next to a phone all day – it's right next to me at my desk as I type this – and people will phone me about work-related things whatever the time of day or night, so I've never felt the need nor had the desire to carry another phone around with me during the scant few hours that I'm out of the house.

No mobile phone means no texting, means no twitter.

Facebook . . . well, I already have a blog where I can post news, comments and pictures, get into conversations, discover things, pass on links and a whole lot more. I came to blogging a couple of years after it became popular. I was probably aware of blogs by 2004 but it was reading David Bishop's blog Vicious Imagery that led to Bear Alley. Actually it was Peter Haining. Peter had phoned up and was asking about an old boys' writer called Ernest McKeag and I had to do some digging around to find an answer for him. And while I was digging, I was thinking about how much of what I was finding would be wasted because I had nowhere to publish it. And the same evening that a couple of other enquiries came my way I happened upon Vicious Imagery and dropped David an e-mail asking: "How easy is it to put together a blog?"

And David said: "If I can do it, it must be easy," which was all the encouragement I needed.

Bear Alley has now been running for almost six years (August 15th will be our sixth birthday) and I've felt no need to add to the workload that I already have keeping up a daily supply of something for the blog. The worry about Facebook has always been that it will simply be another way to fill hours of my time which I need for other things . . . researching or writing my books, or articles or whatever. I still do lots of odd bits and bobs for Allen Hubin's Crime Fiction Bibliography (its the fourth book down with updates published here) and for the Science Fiction Encyclopedia and write a weekly biographical piece for the Illustration Art Gallery blog, so I'm not someone who needs distractions.

What I find useful is music. I love listening to music while I'm working. Usually something that I've heard a thousand times before that just blurs out any noises in the background. I like soundtracks and what people call chill-out music these days – which is something I'll talk about elsewhere – while I'm writing and I'll listen to radio shows, audio books, comedy podcasts while I'm scanning, sorting out artwork or writing Bear Alley (I'm listening to The Comedian's Comedian podcast interview with Sarah Millican as I type this).

For the folks at the back screaming "But how did you accidentally join Facebook?" we're nearly there.

Mel has been listening to something called Spotify which is an online music sales site where you can also listen to music (a bit like radio-on-demand) as long as you don't mind the occasional advert. So Mel was listening to Fleetwood Mac the other day and I mentioned that I'd never had a Fleetwood Mac album but I did buy "Big Love", the single. To cut a long story short, Mel found the song on Spotify and we listened to it.

Brilliant. Sold on the idea, I checked out their site and they said "Getting started is quick, easy and safe" and you've already seen what kind of sucker I am for that kind of encouragement.

And the easiest way to log in is via a Facebook account, which is how I came to sign up to Facebook.

I'm still a bit worried that there will be an overwhelming torrent of "so-and-so wants to be your friend" and loads of messages but so far I've only "friended" a handful of people. That's not because I'm unfriendly . . . I'm just trying to do this at a sensible pace. I'm also still trying to figure out exactly what I'm supposed to be getting out of being on Facebook. I'm in no rush and I am supposed to be working.

Random scans . . . something funny. These books seemed to be in every bookshop when I was growing up and every second hand bookshop had copies of them. Nowadays they seem to have disappeared. You're more likely to see Terry Pratchett and Gray Jolliffe's The Unadulterated Cat.

Eric Gurney was a Canadian cartoonist who began working for Walt Disney in the late 1930s. I found the biography below at the website for the National Cartoonists Society.

Next week's content depends on what I can get together on Sunday. Tomorrow we have a piece on the curiously-named P. Hoole Jackson. Sunday could be a cover gallery.

World of Wonder part 54

C. L. Doughty

M. Unger(?)

C. L. Doughty

(* World of Wonder © Look and Learn Ltd.)

World of Wonder part 53

Neville Dear

Alexander Oliphant

Ralph Bruce

Graham Coton

Neville Dear

(* World of Wonder © Look and Learn Ltd.)

World of Wonder part 52

Ray Calloway

(* World of Wonder © Look and Learn Ltd.)

World of Wonder part 51

(* World of Wonder © Look and Learn Ltd.)

George Revelli

George Revelli was the pen-name of Geoffrey Bocca (1923-1983), a British journalist and author described in one of his books thus: "High-living adventurer, journalist, traveller – and extremely successful author. Born in London, he almost became a professional footballer before setting off for America, where he achieved the remarkable feat (for an Englishman) of making it as a top sportswriter. Later, as an international journalist, he was in Cuba, Algeria and Prague when the going got rough. He now writes about espionage and the more exotic aspects of travel, as well as publishing erotic novels under a pseudonym. His jet-set lifestyle is based on homes in the South of France, Ibiza, London and New York, where he writes his books and – enjoys the good things in life."

Bocca was a war correspondent for the London Daily Express during World War II, later moving to the USA, teaching journalism and creative writing at several American universities. After writing a number of books on royalty, he began writing travel books and later, at the end of the 1960s, turned to writing fiction. His earliest novels, published as by George Revelli and featuring Commander Amanda Nightingale, were set and WWII. Nightingale was a British Intelligence officer dropped behind enemy lines in France where she is soon captured. The books are filled with sexual sadism which can make uncomfortable reading if you're looking for an adventure novel.

Under his own name, Bocca went on to write a couple of glamorous thrillers in the mid-1970s – Nadine and Giselle – set in what were then exotic Mediteranean locations like the Cannes Film Festival and the Riviera. He also (ghost) wrote Appointment in Dallas by Hugh C. McDonald, about the Kennedy assassination.

 

Commander Amanda Nightingale (New York, Grove Press, 1968; London, New English Library, 1969)
Mayflower 0583-11825-9, 1971, 160pp, 30p. Cover: photo
---- [2nd imp.] 1972
---- [3rd imp.] 1973, 160pp, 35p. Cover: photo

Amanda adores her captors
Within hours of landing in occupied territory Commander Amanda Nightingale is captured. She becomes the prisoner, victim and plaything of three perverse and sadistic Germans. Amanda enjoys every minute of it...
__Everything happens to Commander Amanda — the beautiful but inexperienced English spy who leaves her sexpertise marked on the history of occupied France.

Resort to War (New York, Grove Press, 1970; London, New English Library, 1971)
Mayflower 0583-12017-2, (Mar) 1972, 239pp. Cover: photo

Amanda's Castle (New York, Bantam, 1972)
Mayflower 0583-12222-1, 1973, 156pp, 35p. Cover: photo

If you hear the rumour that Amanda won the war single-handed, over a hotbed of rape, bloodshed and torture, don't discount it — read on, it goes something like this:
__"A feminine figure emerged behind the S.S. officer, but such a figure as could never have been seen on a field of battle since the campaigns of Queen Boadicea or the rape of the Sabine women. She looked like she might be very pretty under the thick layer of dirt, but the most alarming thing about her was that she was all but naked..."
__Hello again, Amanda. Nice to have you back again, from the jaws of death and the thigh-grip of your oppressors. To love someone means, in the final analysis, death to all the others!

Amanda in Spain (New York, Zebra, 1975, as by Geoffrey Bocca)
Mayflower 0583-12452-6, 1976, 204pp, 50p. Cover: photo

Amanda takes her punishment
The war in the West is over, but not for the girl who has been raped, defiled, tortured, degraded and humiliated all over Europe — Amanda Nightingale, MP. Now our cool, blonde heroine is heading for fascist Madrid, bolt-hole for all the fleeing rats of Nazi Europe. And among the lost hordes of war criminals and collaborators lurks the infamous Father Grotius, a man with whom Amanda has a few old scores (and tender sores) to settle.
__But there are those in Spain who have other plans. Like Prince Otto von Wied, the stammering sadist. And the Abbess of the self-mortifying Order of St Kristina, a lady of very forceful habits. Both intend to make life pretty painful for Amanda. But then, that's what Amanda's used to. And she's not the sort of girl to take it lying down...

Amanda in Berlin
Mayflower 0583-12778-9, 1978, 188pp, 85p. Cover: photo

Cold war, hot piece
World War II may be over, but for the sensual Amanda Nightingale, MP, the peace proves anything but restful. Brutal Germans have been replaced by even more perverse servants of the USSR. The Cold War is under way, and for Amanda, on a parliamentary visit to Berlin, city of spies, it's back into trouble again.
__Agony for our intrepid blonde heroine, ecstasy for the sadistic tools of the Soviets — it seems to be the story of Amanda's life. Anyone would think she enjoyed it...

Eric Sykes (1923-2012)

Eric Sykes died on Wednesday following a short illness. He was 89. Sykes was one of the last surviving writers of the Associated London Scripts group who helped create the golden age of British radio comedy - The Goons, Hancock's Half Hour, etc. - and some of television's finest moments. A good outline of Sykes' career can be found on Wikipedia.

Sykes, unlike some of the people he wrote for, did not appear widely in British comics. The above article is from TV Express, which also ran a 4-part biography of the comedian in 1961 around the time that Sykes began appearing on the TV in Sykes and A..., the sitcom co-starring Hattie Jacques. The series ran for 59 episodes between 1960-65 and was revived as Sykes, which ran 68 episodes in 1972-79. Sadly, only one series of the latter has appeared on DVD.

The story of Eric's early life was drawn by Bill Mainwaring. For the full story, it is well worth tracking down a copy of Eric's autobiography If I Don't Write It Nobody Else Will – see the Amazon link below.

 

(* © TV Publications Ltd.)