John Burke's Nostalgia   Books, Comics and Magazines

Anyway we started out with the usual stuff I suppose but books I remember were the "Thomas the Tank Engine" books, any number of Enid Blyton series, "Famous Five", "Secret Seven", "The Barney Books", the "Mystery of the..." books and the "...of Adventure" books.

Before those were two huge comic annuals that had belonged to Uncle David. The comic was called Topper and they were full of Arthur Rackham type illustrations of fairy tales and comic strip jolly jape comedy and more wordy tales with a single picture.

These encouraged reading more than comic strips and the subjects were typical of the day. Here a scholarship boy is victorious against one of his better-off schoolmates in the boxing ring, thus proving that any boy is just as good as another whilst upholding fair play and gentlemanly rules of fighting.

Comics were the first step to producing good imperial stock to manage Britain's interests abroad. Well they were up until the 1960s anyway... Real life may not have been like that at all, but in the books about boarding schools - Jennings, Billy Bunter and the rest, we learned about fair play and dealing with rotters and cads! "I say you chaps, my postal order hasn't come yet and I was wondering..."

Whenever a fight was called for in the Bunter books Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry or even the young Lord Mauleverer would pull on the boxing gloves, the other boys would mark out a ring instead of crowding round and would even keep time and insist on breaks. Didn't happen at my school...

We got "The Eagle" which merged with "Robin" and "The Swift" and had my first taste of super heroes in the shape of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, some forgotten-named soldier who had a Ghurka aide who carried an iron-banded cricket bat that he called "Clicky-Ba" (anyone able to furnish names?) and the English fore-runner to Marvel comics' Iron-Man in the shape of Robot Archie.

In 1961 in America Stan Lee created the Fantastic Four and then the year after The Amazing Spider-Man. It took a while for me to catch on but by the time I was 10 I was hooked! I collected most comics that Marvel put out. DC comics with Batman and Superman left me cold - the characters in Marvel argued with each other and had ordinary problems like real people. The old messages about taking responsibility for your actions are there in Marvel. I always think that people who dismiss them as rubbish have never bothered to read any.

I used to collect them mostly on holiday as most newsagents in seaside towns had racks of Marvel Comics with far more comics than I could ever afford. The Avengers, Thor, Sgt Fury - I collected them all!

In the UK "Wham" came out - a strange mix of reprinted Marvel stories and the old-fashioned English comedy comic strips.

They were not in colour though so were never a viable alternative for the real thing! We had the copy shown right. The gun was cardboard and the rubber band that fired the screwed up paper pellets definitely did not go off with a satisfying "Crack"! My brother Frank wrote up and had his letter published, winning a Spider-Man t-shirt. I did the same with "Eagle" and won a five shilling postal order - not the same thing at all!

As a teenager I started to read books that Mum and Dad had. He was a prolific reader of science fiction and westerns. He also had many Tarzan books.

My favourite western series was the "Sudden" series by Oliver Strange. I got into the "Biggles" books in a big way - particularly the stories of Biggles as a fighter pilot in the First World War. The first series of grown up books I bought myself was the James Bond books by Ian Fleming. They were short and could be read more or less in a single night and were far better than most of the films. The exception being "From Russia With Love" as the film is very very close to the book.

As an older teenager I read Harold Robbins (as did all teenage boys in those days!) and then Dennis Wheatley, starting with the black magic books. This was due to seeing the excellent Hammer Horror film of "The Devil Rides Out" but then I started to read other books until I had all the Duke de Richleau and then Gregory Sallust books.

Readers' help required!

Ok! This is where you can possibly help me. In my early teens I was a keen member of the local library and enjoyed two series of books that I have very little information about and that I cannot remember the authors' names at all. Can anyone remember these two separate series from the following very scanty information?

Series one was about a young lad and his mate. His older brother in the first book of the series had a motorbike and sidecar. By the start of the second book the brother had a girlfriend and had swapped the bike for a small van - possibly an Austin A35? One of the books had the young lad who was the main hero finding an abandoned speedboat. Tall order? How about this one then...

Series two was about a group of children who lived in Wigan. There was a girl called Sally who had a younger brother called Bartholmew but who was always referred to as Buffin. One of the books had them going to Southport.

Please email me with any information you might have! My email address is at the top and bottom of the page. And even though you should never start a sentence with "and"... And finally, just in case anyone is wondering why I haven't mentioned Tolkein - I was well into my twenties before I read either "The Hobbit" or "Lord of The Rings"! Oh yes... and I still collect Marvel Comics!