Flecker’s Banning of some Comics

[Alex]

I was intrigued by the ban on Rock Music, ineffectually imposed by Clarence Seaman at CH in the late 50s.

I’ve never seen any mention in this Forum, or anywhere else, of a similar ban imposed by HLO Flecker, Seaman’s predecessor as HM, in the late 40s. This was the banning of American comics. In those days there were at least two types of British comics. The Dandy and Beano were examples of Type 1 and were principally comic strips, published every Tuesday and quite innocuous. Perhaps they still exist. They were not large, say 10-16 pages with unsophisticated printing and colours. Other British comics were more specialised; Radio Fun, Film Fun and Playbox (for younger children). Type 2 (Hotspur, Champion, etc) included a half dozen or so serial stories only, their subjects typically including public school stories (Red Circle), a football team, and cowboys’ adventures but no comic strips. All British comics were permitted at CH, but not encouraged at all.

After the Second World War more goods (ie non-essential items unavailable during the war) were imported into the UK. These included so-called American comics. They were much larger with much better presentation, range of colours and far more detailed artistry than British equivalents. They dealt with all types of subject, never present in British comics, often including much violence, but not porn. (I suspect their level of violence, etc, was less than today’s norm.) There were questions in the Houses of Parliament after unsuccessful attempts to forbid their importation into the UK and plenty of newspaper articles about their corrupting effect on British children.

Flecker’s ban was pretty successful. Relatively few boys were interested and fewer possessed them. Some such comics were discovered and punishments were administered to their owners, but nothing too severe, perhaps a small (2 or 3 strokes?) beating.

Are there more examples of CH (Horsham) censorship?

My inspiration for this thread is that I’m currently reading a biography of the novelist (and playwright) Henry Fielding with great pleasure. Today I learned of the severe censorship of England’s theatrical productions introduced in 1737, with the Licensing Act and the establishment of the Lord Chamberlain’s office (and how Fielding suffered as a consequence). A form of English theatrical censorship supervised by the Lord Chamberlain continued till 1968.

[ZeroDeConduite]

The only comic permitted in Peele A was The Eagle, which was allowed because it had been produced (by an Anglican vicar) to specifically counter the 'pernicious' influence of the imports from the US.
And a very fine read it was... "Dan Dare Pilot Of The Future".

[jhopgood]

I graduated from “Robin” to “Eagle” via “Swift”. My mother would send me the “Eagle” every week, until we switched it to the “Children’s Newspaper “. I seem to remember that someone else received the “Beano”.
I’m pretty certain others read our copies and it never occurred to me that there might have been a ban.

[sejintenej]

I might have seen one or two editions of the Eagle; we certainly didn't get them at home and there was no nearby newsagent.

However, about 6 years ago we were in a local second hand store and saw a few very old American comics - in English of course. Judicious questioning resulted in a pile six inches high, all numbers between 1 and 15 or so, the lot costing about 8 euros. A later trip and he found another six inches high pile - a bit more expensive at about 10 euros!!!!! My daughter was able to get hold of proper covers for antique papers so they are in her house carefully looked after and, I hope, well insured.

Amazing what you can pick up in France; I have a circa 1826 bound book of voyages Paris to Jerusalem and a voyage to America by Chateaubriand. The cover is strong but marked but the inside is in near perfect condition - cost = nothing! I do find his way of thinking somewhat strange. As well as a long discussion about the original city of Jerusalem he spends 3 and a bit pages simply listing the number of Jews living in each of a multitude of cities , towns, villages etc from the middle east through western Europe!

[Richard]

One of my friends always returned for the term’s start with plenty of American comics, for his uncle was a newsagent I think. So he fell foul of the ban and they were confiscated. However he knew lots about them and had the gumption to appeal to our sen housemaster to point out that some of his comics were called Classic Comics and all relayed allegedly good literature. I can only remember among their titles “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Oliver Twist”. So he asked for them back and promised he would only read Classic Comics in future. The housemaster, a reasonable chap, thought for a while and said, “No”. He explained that it was better to read the originals rather than comic versions and with a partial lifting of the ban, the resulting situation would be too complex. That was that and so we all had no more of them in term time.

[sejintenej]

One of my friends always returned for the term’s start with plenty of American comics, for his uncle was a newsagent I think. So he fell foul of the ban and they were confiscated. However he knew lots about them and had the gumption to appeal to our sen housemaster to point out that some of his comics were called Classic Comics and all relayed allegedly good literature.

I hope he got them back or alternatively he should demand them or compensation. Some of ours are valued in four figures each

[William]

Mr Flecker’s ban for comics reminded me of another of his (more reasonable?) bans enacted at about the same time.

There was a craze for collecting beer mats, amongst the junior half of the school. So boys would write to innumerable breweries requesting mats, which were often duly posted to the boys. (Were times different and more courteous then? Or were the breweries simply nurturing future potential customers?) Swaps were frequent, with some brands highly prized. One of the largest breweries got so fed up with this that they sent a large number of beer mats to Mr Flecker, asked him to distribute them to collectors and request the boys to stop writing to the brewery. He of course knew nothing about the craze. So he addressed a meeting of the whole school and ordered immediate cessation of all requests for beer mats.

Although the beer mats and American comic bans are not very important, it is good they are recorded on this forum, for to my knowledge they have never been mentioned in “The Blue” or anywhere else. Who knows what some brilliant, future social historian may do with this otherwise unavailable material?

[J.R.]

I remember "Trash Mags" were strictly banned. The could be bought at the Horsham market off The Carfax (now Piries)

[sejintenej]

Mr Flecker’s ban for comics reminded me of another of his (more reasonable?) bans enacted at about the same time.

One of the largest breweries got so fed up with this that they sent a large number of beer mats to Mr Flecker, asked him to distribute them to collectors and request the boys to stop writing to the brewery. He of course knew nothing about the craze. So he addressed a meeting of the whole school and ordered immediate cessation of all requests for beer mats.

LOFL. That really had me laughing given the result of the ban. A boy in Col A (whose name I conveniently forget) reacted well. He collected bog paper - not just ordinary bog paper but he even had bog paper marked OHMS from various prisons! I wonder if The Oil heard about that as well.
Just a thought; what would HM think about HM being used for cleaning up number2s? Is that lese majeste?

Edit: I suspect the collecter might have been Blogg - at least the name rhymes!

[eucsgmrc]

... A boy in Col A ... collected bog paper - not just ordinary bog paper but he even had bog paper marked OHMS from various prisons! ...

Edit: I suspect the collecter might have been Blogg - at least the name rhymes!

It was indeed the late Colin Blogg. He had his sheets of paper (all unused) neatly mounted like large stamps in several exercise books. Whereas I have only one such memento of CH. I used it to wrap a quarter-plate glass negative, and it lay quietly and securely in an Ilford FP4 box for nigh on fifty years until I rediscovered the box and scanned the plate. And couldn't resist scanning the paper too. Follow this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jandsw/19866203453

[Foureyes]

Several posts above refer to 'collecting beer mats.' I do not say that some may have been collecting such mats, but I believe that most (including me) collected LABELs; i.e. the designs that were glued to the bottles rather than placed on the table. And it wasn't just beer either, but included wine and spirits. Now that the subject has been mentioned, I recall that I had a particularly comprehensive collection of sherry labels, collected by my father on my behalf when his ship called at a port near Jerez.
I cannot remember a talk from Mr Flecker, but do recall, that, like so many 'crazes', it just died of its own accord.
David

[ColA25]

I remember collecting beer mats in the mid-70s, would have been before I even started drinking beer. If you got lucky, the brewery sent a bar cloth as well, and once even a wine glass. I may even still have that lurking in a cupboard 50 years later.

[sejintenej]

I remember collecting beer mats in the mid-70s, would have been before I even started drinking beer. If you got lucky, the brewery sent a bar cloth as well, and once even a wine glass. I may even still have that lurking in a cupboard 50 years later.

I still have and occasionally wear a pair of rugger blue socks. They made quality in those days.
Plus / minus a few days from June 3, 1953 we were all chucked out of school for the Coronation. I had to stay with my godmother and after church she and the rector presented me with an 1816 Ackermann print of a Christ Hospital Scholar. The only other thing I have from my youth is a photo aged about 2 with my father whom I don't remember..

[Straz]

Fascinating thread.
I may have mentioned it before, but I do recall a craze at CH in the early 1970s for collecting Dunlop Groundhog tyre stickers.
They were very colourful, there were a number of different ones available, and people started swapping them.
Eventually it got so out of hand - with lots of boys requesting them from Dunlop - that the tyre company sent a large amount of the stickers to the school office.
With shades of when Flecker banned beer mat collecting, Newsome (who had recently taken over as HM from Seaman) mentioned it in Big School and we were banned from writing to Dunlop ever again.
I can't remember if the stickers that were sent to the school office were shared out, but that was the end of that particular collecting craze...

[ASR]

... And I remember a craze in 1968 for sending off for "I'm Backing Britain" stickers, which got out of hand and was put a stop to: this from web

I'm Backing Britain was a brief patriotic campaign, which flourished in early 1968 and was aimed at boosting the British economy. The campaign started spontaneously when five Surbiton secretaries volunteered to work an extra half-hour each day without pay to boost productivity and urged others to do the same.

Round about the same time was a craze for sending off for Mao's Little Red Book - which lots of people sent off for but left 'unred'. This was probably dealt with the same way, but memory fai....