On the centre pages and accompaning the exploded drawing was Skippy The Kangeroo by Danet, Dubrisay and Genestre. A strip with weak scripts and very continental influenced artwork. Skippy's owner/partner was called Sir Marlborough Mouseworthy - the greatest hunter of all time - and was always getting into a pickle before eventually being saved by Skippy. It managed to last through the whole first volume of the comic.

Norman Thelwell introduced us to the three framed strip entitled Chicko, who was always presented with a predicament in the first frame, the plotting of an idea in the second frame and the humourous conclusion in the final frame. Always very well thought out and very funny. Norman has written many satirical books along the lines of 'Devastating Experiences With Cats', 'The Joys And Hazards Of Owning A Motor Car' and 'The Pursuit Of Happiness'. A lot of his work has also been transferred into Royal Doulton figurines. Norman sadly died on 8th February 2004 after a long illness. He was 80 years old.

The Tommy Walls saga was quite unusual because it was a weekly action adventure strip that was actually a full paged colour advertisment for Wall's ice cream. Each week, our young hero, Tommy Walls, would attend a special show or exhibition with his chums when a disaster would strike. Tommy, having already consumed his Wall's Ice Cream in an earlier frame, can now make the Magical W Sign to give him magical powers like being able to fly and have super strength. He would always save the day and end up by being rewarded with another scoop of Wall's ice cream. This strip was drawn by numerous artists during its four year run, including Frank Hampson, Richard E. Jennings and John Worsley. The early stories were just one-offs, but after the first year they developed into full blown adventure stories that ran for many weeks and often made no mention whatsoever of Wall's ice cream.

The comic had its very own club and to become a member of The Eagle Club readers needed to send a shilling and agree by the club rules. The four most important rules were:-

1 - To enjoy life and help others to enjoy life. They will not enjoy themselves at the expense of others.
2 - Make the best of themselves. They will develop themselves in body, mind and spirit.
3 - Work with others for the good of all around them.
4 - Always lend a hand to those in need of help.

For their shilling, apart from the book of rules, the member would receive a charter of membership and the Eagle badge made in gilt. The first two weeks attracted a phenominal 60,000 members. As a member, each would also attempt to become a MUG. It wasn't an acronym, it simply meant the opposite of spivs, who were also called wide-boys, smart guys, hooligans, louts and racketeers. The idea behind this name was that spivs would use the word as an insult. "Aren't they MUGS?" the spivs would snigger about people who believed in doing something for people other than themselves. Basically, a MUG was a pretty good chap and to become one, a member would have to be put forward by someone else to receive the monthly MUG award and have their photograph and story published in the comic. At the end of each year, all the MUGS throughout that year would get invited to a special 'do'.

The back page, usually drawn by Norman Williams, was always taken up by either religious or historical stories like The Great Adventurer (who was Jesus' disciple Paul), Alfred The Great, Sir Walter Raleigh, Horatio Nelson, Baden Powell and Marco Polo. Riders Of The Range later called Jeff Arnold in Riders Of The Range written by Charles Chilton and drawn by Frank Humphris was set in the American wild west and had Jeff fighting cattle rustlers and red indians amongst other 'baddies'. Harris Tweed, Extra Special Agent was a bit of a nincompoop who thought he was a private investigater/secret agent. Due to his lack of planning (and intelligence) he would always start haphazardly and then, more by luck than judgement, end up by catching the crooks, and then intimate that it was all part of his plan. He was often aided, without recognition, by a young lad who was only ever refered to as The Boy. In the early days this strip was one page long but it eventually settled down to just half a page. Herge's adventures of Tintin took over from Skippy The Kangaroo and was in turn replaced by Luck Of The Legion who was Sergeant 'Tough' Luck of the French Foreign Legion who tried to maintain peace in the far east. Luck was ably assisted by his number two Corporal Trenet in the legions attempt to retain the security of the their outposts. The strip was very well drawn by Martin Aitchison and written by Geoffrey Bond. It lasted until Longacre took over from Hulton's in 1960. Storm Nelson - Sea Adventurer was a sailor, helicopter and submarine pilot of the Silver Fleet which operated in the South Pacific. Other members of his fleet included Spanner, Bash, Jonah, McCann and Happy. The Jack O' Lantern story (started 4/2/1955) was set in the early 19th century England (Napoleonic times) and was about a young lad called Jack Yorke and his canine pal Turnspit. The stories are ongoing and have Jack pitting his wits against French agents and English traitors as well as clearing the name of his cousin and capturing horse stealers amongst many topics. Because this was a period story, a lot of attention was made to background details like street scenes and furnishings. It was very well written by George Beardmore and very well drawn by Robert Ayton. Cavendish Brown M.S., who replaced P.C. 49, was a medical surgeon AND a detective who had a servant named Beadle. The strip was drawn by Pat Williams and written by Bill Wellings and differed from P.C. 49 in that Cavendish Brown used lateral thinking which enabled him to avoid getting a thumping (but being a surgeon as well, I'm sure he would have coped!). This story was replaced in 1959 by They Showed The Way and was about real-life adventurers and inventors like Charles Lindbergh and James Simpson (anesthetics).

From the 11th September 1953 the Eagle Extra Supplement was presented. This was two additional pages with new stories in it, which included an adventure story called Marvel Of M.I.5. about a secret service chap called Kim Marvel which was written by David Cameron and drawn by Nevin. There was also the Eagle Extra-Funnies which consisted of humour strips called That Chap, Just Johnny by Valentine, Edison Brain - The Boy Inventor by Hickey and Pedro The Pirate by Martin.

The comic always contained sporting tips including football and 'How to tackle' where it once mentioned that 'two feet are always better then one!'. Other sports covered were Cricket, Rugby and even swimming - which including life saving techniques. There was also strong support for table tennis for boys and shows a very young Chester Barnes competing in the under-15's tournament. Chester went on to become world champion during the 1960's. The comic later had a section entitled Eagle Sports News which detailed the last weeks events along with upcoming events. The Eagle also produced a sports annual from 1952 that attempted to cover most sports included the less popular ones like speedway, fencing, rowing, ice-hockey, basketball and squash.

Marcus Morris left the editors chair in the autumn of 1959 and warned of drastic changes ahead, and from the 19th March 1960 those drastic changes were realised. Hulton Press Ltd were taken over by Odhams Press which was renamed Longacre Press Ltd. They wanted to shake up what they thought was a rather staid publication and they decided to change the classic front cover look. Gone was the solid read box in the top left corner with the large lead frame of the Dan Dare story next to it. In March 1960 (Vol.11 No.12) came the more conventional style of the word Eagle printed across the top of the page in a red rectangular block (see images at top of this page). Not too drastic and maybe there was some justification for the publishers decision. After all, many of the stories had been running for way over five years and were possibly not appealing to the new readership tastes. Remember, the 10-16 year-old of 1950 was no longer reading the Eagle in 1960.

It was all changing. Frank Hampson had stopped drawing Dan Dare in the summer of 1959 and from January 1960 he was drawing the back page story of the life of Jesus Christ called The Road Of Courage. It was written by Marcus Morris and contained some quite stunning artwork. Frank was to leave the Eagle in April 1961 and after a brief time drawing adverts he settled down to illustrate for the Ladybird childrens books. Frank Bellamy took over the Dan Dare strip from Frank Hampson and, at the editors request, attempted to update him with a more rugged look, newer uniforms and modern gadgetry. However, Bellamy was a one man band who had to work with some of Hampson's original staff and the clashes were inevitable. Bellamy did well to last the one year that he did and has received mixed acclaim for his work on Dan Dare. Many people believe that if he was left to get on with the strip in his own way he would have been just as successful as Hampson, but that chance never materialized.

New stories were born, like Knights Of The Road drawn by Gerald Haylock, Vic Venture drawn by G. Bull, Fraser Of Africa drawn by Frank Bellamy and the humour strip Sir Percy Vere drawn by Roland Fiddy. By 1962, the Dan Dare strip had been relegated to the inside black and white pages. The colour page count of the comic had been reduced from 8 to 6 and one of those was usually an advert. Mind you, page count itself had increased from 16 to 20. The coloured centre pages now had a well drawn Frank Bellamy story in the shape of Montgomery Of Alamein which was still in keeping with the comics traditional idea of illustrated true stories. As was Only The Brave about couragous people who had won the George Medal for acts of outstanding gallantry. The whole of the back page was taken up with the exploded drawings which used to be on the centre pages. Other 'new format' stories were Home Of The Wanderers, about two footballers from first division Welport Wanderers, who had stumbled on a plan to destroy their club and they decided to set about stopping it. The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle followed the story of Professor Challenger and his team into the unexplored heart of South America in search of a lost prehistoric country, which they duly found and had to fight off rampaging dinosaurs. Vengance Trail was a Western story about a young cowboy called Lex Tarron who was being hunted by a ruthless killer called Ingram and was constantly being twarted by Lex. Sergeant Bruce C.I.D. was a modern day crime saga with Dave Bruce and his working partner Constable Bill Prior. The story was two pages long and always concluded with the villians' collar being felt! There was the very popular Heros The Spartan (probably modelled on the film Spartacus from 1960) about a Roman Centurion who had won many battles fighting for Caesar and had become very popular. However, he had enemies from within the Roman high command, including the jealous Caesar himself, who was constantly using underhand methods of getting Heros killed. The strip was originally drawn by Frank Bellamy and it took over the colourful centre pages, but like so many Eagle artists of this time, Frank seemed to lose heart with the strip and towards the end of 1964 it was taken over by the Spanish artist Luis Bermejo.

By 1960, thanks to the Fleetway takeover, the popular Eagle Club had ceased to be and by 1962 most of the popular educational features that separated the Eagle from other comics had been reduced to just one. It featured The Man From Eagle who went around the country visiting establishments and giving the low-down on places like the Rolls Royce factory in Crewe, Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer film studios and London Airport control tower. This interesting series stopped by 1963, but with the incorporation of Swift from the 9th March 1963 more of these features returned including the very popular Sporting Talk and profiles of sporting heroes like the 23 year old motor-cycling champion Mike Hailwood and footballers Dennis Law and Ron Springett. There was also a page dedicated to museums around the country.

Stories that were appearing at this time were Mann Of Battle, drawn in black and white by Brian Lewis, it was set in WW2 and had Captain Pete Mann and his batman, Slogger Bates, fighting behind enemy lines. It was just one page long and was quite slow paced. The Beast In Loch Craggon was a new story for the first issue of the combined Eagle And Swift and was set in the Scottish Highlands. It followed the story of young fisherman's son Jamie Fergus and his encounter with a mysterious being from the sea, hence the title name. Eagle had always had humour relief since day one in the shape of Norman Thelwell's Chicko (1950) and Joh Ryan's Captain Pugwash (1950), Professor Puff And His Dog Wuff (1953) by David Langdon and later with Roland Fiddy's Sir Percy Vere (1960). In 1961 the great Reg Parlett gave Eagle Fidosaurus, set in caveman times, Fido was a rather large 'pet' dinosaur who was constantly getting himself and his owner into trouble. He occasionally appeared in colour. In 1963 another Reg Parlett creation came about in the shape of those blundering policemen from XYZ Cars whose call sign was 'U for useless'! Can You Catch A Crook? was a two page black and white strip which gave clues as to who the crook was and you had to spot them. Most were fairly obvious but some were pretty clever. Dan Dare was now a two page black and white strip being drawn by Keith Watson and the exploded drawings were on the full coloured back page.

Blackbow The Cheyenne was a white child who was found wandering by the Cheyenne Chief, Grey Cloud. Guided by the great spirits, Grey Cloud, whose own son had been killed in war, brought up the child as his own and, as the years past, the boy was taught the Cheyenne way and given the name of Blackbow. Eventually, war saw to it that Blackbow became last of the Cheyenne and with nowhere else to go, went to the white mans town of Powder Creek and was cared for by Doctor Tad Barnaby. Blackbow then became a doctor himself and took the name of Jim Barnaby. The story continued by tracing the adventures of Jim the doctor and Blackbow the Cheyenne trying to install law and order without revealing his true identity. This strip, drawn by Frank Humphris, was one of the more popular ones of the 'late' Eagle's and lasted right the way through to the very end. Cornelius Dimworthy was drawn by Sam Fair in 1964. That's the same Sam Fair who drew Musso The Wop for the wartime Beano and Addie And Hermy for the wartime Dandy. Cornelius was a mischievious schoolboy who was always out for a 'jape' and a 'wheeze'. The story lasted for over two years. The Iron Man (1964) epitomized all that Marcus Morris detested in comics, fantasy characters with special powers which they used to hunt down the 'baddies'. Iron Man was really an all steel robot beneath his suit of special plastic skin. He operated in the U.S. and tracked down criminals known as the Under-Earthlings and The Destroyer. The Eagle was starting its downward spiral. U.F.O. Agent was similar to Can You Catch A Crook?, in that you had to use clues given in the story to work out how the E.O.S. (Enemies Of Society) caught their enemies or saved their clients. However, our two heroes Major Grant and his assistant Boffin Bailey, got their orders from strange space beings from another world, who watched Earth from a far away satellite. The Guinea Pig started in 1965 and introduced us to Mike Lane, an Inventions Tester (Guinea-Pig) to Professor Dee at his laboratories in Dartmoor. Some of the tests made Mike more intelligent, while others made him more egotistical, fire proof or just down-right evil. Professor Dee was an inventor who went into his experiments 'feet first' which made the stories more exciting because there was always something that was overlooked or simply not tested. The story often occupied either the front cover or the coloured centre pages. It lasted until the penultimate issue (Vol.20 No.16 - 1969). Circus Wanderers (1968) were a bunch of circus stars who wanted to become a top county football team. It was a bit of a tounge-in-cheek story where each player utilised their circus talents when playing for Shelford. They were managed by Tim Masters and his team consisted of Beppo the clown, who always played with a clowns hat on. Waldo the strongman, who often blasted both ball and goalkeeper into the back of the net. Tubby the goalkeeper, Mowgl who never wore football boots, Hairpin the bald one and so on. I don't think that Marcus Morris would have allowed this story to see the light of day (maybe in Swift) but, of course, Marcus was long gone by now! Lt Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1968) served on the H.M.S. Renown and H.M.S. Lydia amongst other ships. The story often occupied the colourful centre pages and made a 'major' use of text narrative in association with speech balloons to tell the story (almost one a frame). Set at the height of Napoleon's conquering of Europe it follows the Lieutenant's fight against Bonaparte and his navy and contained some nice historical content. It was well drawn and well written (by who, I don't know) and was a story that I felt Marcus would have happily published. Other stories that appeared in the latter years were Smokeman (1966), a super-hero type character who saved the day using his fantasy smokey skills - just the sort of thing that Marcus detested. The Gladiators were six Roman slave gladiators that were being hunted by Caesar, when they happened upon a mystic sourcerer who cast a spell over them so that they were transported through time into the middle of WW2. The story actually made the transition into Lion in 1969. The Day The World Forgot (1968) set in the current times was a good little sci-fi story telling how the Earth passed through the radiation-filled tail of a comet, which had the effect of making people forget things. Pilots forgot how to fly, fireman forgot how to fight fires and people forgot how to speak. Our heroes, Martin Bell and Derek Dale, who were pot-holing at the time of the 'pass-through' had not been affected. However, a couple of escaped convicts were also sheltering in the same cave and were also unaffected. The story continues with the cons trying to rule the people of a nearby village, while Martin and Derek try to thwart the attempt. The Waxer (1969) was a mad curator of a failing wax museum who had somehow managed to give life to his exhibits and instruct them to carry out his dastardly deeds. It was set in modern day England and pitted Septimus Creech (The Waxer) against Mike Masters (a policeman). This story also made the transfer over to Lion.

Towards the end of its life, many of the stories were out and out reprints. Dan Dare was battling in The Rogue Planet again and although Frank Hampson's excellent artwork could be seen once more, his name was shamelessly erased from it. The new owners, IPC Magazines Ltd (Robert Maxwell-et-el) had absolutely no respect for the comics history and tradition and promptly set about killing off this loss-maker. Issue dated 26th April 1969 (Vol.20 No.17) was its last. It was its 991st issue, they didn't even see fit to run it for another 9 weeks so that it could reach the magical 1000! It merged with Lion, the comic that Fleetway actually started in order to challenge Eagle back in 1952. The comic that had given so much enjoyment and involvement to generations of boys had finally come to an end. The very last cover had the artwork of Frank Hampson on it, just like the very first. And although its final years were not its best there were still some good stories and features in it. However it did have an absolutely glorious first decade and that's how this fine publication should be best remembered.