Boy's Own Annual

Jane, I remember the Boys Own Annuals but, to be quite honest, I didn't have much time for them. I did, however, think the Doctor Who Annuals well worth the brass you gave up for them.

Boys Own smacked of school work dressed up as entertainment. Sort of like a sheep in wolf's clothing but still a sheep.

The Doctor Who Annuals had stories about time travel to the past and to the future and fun strips thrown in for good measure. Mind you, as you say, the Boys Own dates much earlier than Doctor Who. Still I didn't care that much for Beano or Eagle growing up or anything with school kids as school kids in it. I preferred the comic books out of the USA with the superheroes to British comic papers and annuals.

What I didn't like about both the Doctor Who Annuals and the Boys Own was the poor color except on the cover. The interiors, color=wise, always looked awful. The same was true of the British comic papers.

I reckon the Biggles novels which were for boys also outshone Boys Own.

I loved Ripping Yarns when it was on tele. It poked fun at Boys Own like nobody's business. I loved the send up of the great escape in which even the German guards wanted to get away from this British idiot and his ultimate escape plan. So everyone does a bunk while this idiot is still working on his escape. Priceless stuff.

Yes, i suppose you are right when you say boys Own was looking very much 'Old Hat' by the time I was a boy. the funny thing is that Girls Own comic papers with articles as well as strips such as Daisy were doing quite well.

Thanks for this introduction to Boys' Own. Being on the other side of the pond, and a girl, too, I never saw it on my radar, nor Ripping Yarns. I'm actually off to YouTube now to watch more videos. Voted up!

Never heard of this charming series of boys' books before, Jane, but they appear to be - in their time - spiffy, ripping, and spot on. Thanks for the newsflash.

Must go now, it's time for my tea and scones. Will return in a 'fortnit.'

I have two Disney comics at home in German. Is that foreign enough for you? At one time I bought a coke from the school tuck shop only to find the writing in Arabic. I wish I had kept that bottle.

I was always suspicious of children in programs and in stories suspecting a lesson lurking somewhere. With Doctor Who it was different. Even when children did appear in a story it was still pure adventure and fun.

It was in the comic papers and the annuals that the dreaded Daleks first developed the power of flight. Nothing like going around exterminating people from a platform in the air. Nice creatures the Daleks, rather soulless but with a good sense of humor. I wanted a model of one of those gliding pepper pots when I was a kid. I do have a police call box money box though.

I remember seeing a few old, battered copies of this laying around when I was a kid in the 60s. I don't remember ever reading it.

The police call box money box is hand crafted but only dates back to the 1980s. I got it from a comic book shop. Even so I have it because I like it.

I have seen daleks in the ABC shop but they don't impress me that much. They are very expensive for what they are. What I would really like is a dalek from the 1960s but that would be really pricey.

As you have pointed out, Jane, the 1960s heralded in a new era in which the Boys Own Annuals were indeed passe.

Not only were daleks and police call boxes roaming around, doing their thing there was also International Rescue (Thunderbirds) and Stingray to consider.

Stingray came first. It is now a supermarionation classic in both the show on tele and in the annuals. A powerful submarine with crew and a mermaid. What more could you want?

Thunderbirds is best known and best loved by kids of the swinging '60s. Who could forget the count down followed by thunderous jets and the words: "Thunderbirds are go!" Penelope, the British agent with her pink rolls, was a favorite with my sisters. My brother liked the workhorse Thunderbird 2. I liked Thunderbird 4 because I still had a thing for subs. I guess I just loved the beach and references to water.

The Robot from Lost in Space is around in some novelty shops but way too expensive.

Or read about Thunderbirds, Jane, or pick up a copy of the comic paper 2001 and read about Judge Dredd...

It wasn't just television. In the 1960s SF was far more appealing to boys than, as you say, 'Derek's Rugby Adventure'. If not subs then there was flight. Rockets and space craft were popular. When I was a kid I thought the original enterprise was really impressive. It was like a window into the future.

Besides, you might want to play rugby or soccer or whatever but do you really want to read about it? Not me! Just like I much prefer to go fishing than to read someone's account of a fishing trip I wasn't on.

I was a big Shintaro, the Samurai fan. It was new and exciting. I still have my collection of the bubble gum cards put out by Scalens in the 1960s. You sniff them and even after all this time you can still smell the bubble gum. And that smell does take me back too.

Sounds like your brother-in-law has similar tastes to my own.

I was brought up on the good old BOP! And the Annuals. Infact this Hub made me feel almost nostalgic for the crap. My old man thought them wonderful - full of British grit and all that. I hated them and only read them under sufferance - they were plain boring. Whenever I could I threw them away or ignored them. They still came relentlessly in the mail each month.

Thanks for the interesting reminiscences for me.

Love and peace

Tony

I was a girl in the 70's, and I think my parents tried hard to make things equal for me and my brother. We often played with the same toys, but in very different ways. Playing with Legos, I would generally build houses and my brother would build cars. (Sometimes we compromised, with mobile homes. But his would be armored.)

I haven't read the Boy's Own, but I would like to. If I'd been given it as a kid, I would not have read it voluntarily; I would have judged it by its dusty-looking cover, and would have read any bright-colored SF or fantasy novel first. My brother might possibly have read it for the title even with the actual cover.

But it is probably not comparable with The Dangerous Book for Boys, because that one, besides being instructive about a bunch of things nobody knows how to do anymore, is also VERY cleverly written, and quite funny. So I think anybody would like The Dangerous Book for Boys, but I can certainly see how my sons, when they get old enough to read it, will actually try out many of the things in it, where I would have only read it.

There is a book written by different authors, the Daring Book for Girls, which I resent for pretending to be as clever as the boys' book, and also for trying to say (in the words of battle-of-the-sexes musical Annie Get Your Gun) "anything you can do, I can do better".

Why can't boys be allowed to be boys? Why must girls have to like everything boys do, and compete with them? I read adventure books along with my brother, and generally our reactions mirror our reactions to Lord of the Rings; I like it very much, he loves it. I re-read parts every few years, he reads all of it annually. Nobody ever told me I couldn't like the books he likes. But I reserve the right not to love them, and the right to think car chases and explosions are boring and noisy.

If a clever writer decides to write a book, aimed at young girls, about how to embroider, knit, decorate cakes, attract boys, garden, and other such things, I think it could sell at least as well as The Dangerous Book for Boys. But only if girls think for themselves rather than listen to book reviewers telling them they only want to read about adventure stories....

Okay, but choice should be informed. I have a lot of friends who have no children or fewer than they wanted because they chose career first, family later, not recognizing that fertility doesn't last. For much more on the subject (and someone who says it better than I do), see Danielle Crittenden's book "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us".

And actually, sometimes it does help to be pointed in just one direction. My generation (male and female) grew up being told "you can do anything you want". Sounds nice, but I think a lot of us would have progressed beyond adolescence faster if we'd had advice on what we were most likely to succeed at.

Back to your original topic; I know a lot of women who would appreciate more men of their generation having been encouraged as boys to be at least clean and manly. Maybe someone will get inspired by your hub to do something like Boy's Own for today. I'd buy it for my boys.

aethelthryth, one of the things I grew up with was Star Trek. The adventure was there. The lessons in manliness were there if you were a boy. And it wasn't just television. There were the comic books and the paperback novels. Later on there were the conventions.

I liked Spok with his logic but sometimes I favored Bones. Uhura was beautiful and exotic (Hey! I grew up in Australia) with a charming voice.

Later on I got into the Next Generation with their television show, comic books and paperbacks. And so it went for some years. My nieces and nephews have grown up with Star Trek thanks to their parents also being fans.

The Star Trek characters are neat and clean in body, mind and spirit and they are very tolerant of others. I have something like 200 Star Trek paperback novels in my collection dating back to the 1960s.

Good hub,thanks for sharing.

Gotta love' em boy's own annuals. I got hold of a few on ebay and also some called the Lion and the Eagle - spiffin' jolly ol' time to be had indeed. There is so much Nostalgia with those tales. I remember reading John Buchan and Rider Haggard as a kid and those rousing adventures fuelled my imagination well. I too loved the Rippin' Yarns. Absolutely hilarious- I watched Tomkinson's schooldays and Michael Palin and Terry Jones had me in stitches! voted up.