Haywards Heath, the Brighton Line, Teddy Boys, and Uncle Sam's Trousers

Rounding out the week, here are a few words on my recent writings from the savvy and sagacious Barry McAleenan. They have been culled from a variety of sources, and poorly plastered together here by yours truly…

On Haywards Heath, and my 'virtual' ride along Cuckfield Road this week:

"There is now no Cuckfield Road in Haywards Heath, but a road from Hurstpierpoint (going northwards) to Cuckfield is so-named in places. The coming of the railways to HH blew Cuckfield out of the water commercially. It had thrived as an overnight stop for the coaches travelling from London to Brighton. Apparently, this is why it is to be found on so many 'older' maps."

Barry's thoughts on George Mills using 'Haywards Heath' as the location for Parkfield School:

"In the days before post codes, the full postal address effectively included the chain of sorting offices, and with the coming of the railways, this would have changed. From Wikipedia (for background):

• On 10 January 1840, the Uniform Penny Post was established throughout the UK, facilitating the safe, speedy and cheap conveyance of letters, and from 6 May could be prepaid with the first postage stamp, known as the Penny Black.

• The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) (commonly known as "the Brighton line" or "the Brighton Railway") was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. [...] Haywards Heath was in use by 1858.

A dedication would tend to abbreviate the address, thereby denying us the actual village where the school may have been, and assuredly tell us where the main railway station was."

So, if I understand correctly, Parkfield may not have been in Haywards Heath per se. The alleged relationship between any past Parkfield School and Cuckfield would only have been established by the fact that there are now, along the internet, a few mentions of a "Wick and Parkfield School" on Cuckfield Road. The websites that school is mentioned on are of fairly recent vintage.

Barry continues: "There is a prep school in HH called 'Tavistock and Summerhill' who may be able to offer you an answer that may help."

I'll see what they may be able to tell me, but, ironically, schools can be a very "iffy" proposition when it comes to disseminating information. For every Windlesham House and Warren Hill, schools and communities who embrace their history and freely offer up archival information, there's an Eaton House Prep and a Magdalen College School, institutions that are not disposed to respond to enquiries, at least not to those of an historical nature.

Now, Barry was, as we know, a student at Seaford's Ladycross Preparatory School during the 1950s, and was there when George Mills taught a summer term in 1956. In regard to the changing hairstyles on the children in the Mills books throughout time [and the uniforms as well]:

1950's Hair-styles

Check out Teddy Boys in Wikipedia on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Boy_%28subculture%29

We Ladycross prep school boys were living a very isolated existence in the mid-50s: No TV, no radio and a copy of the Daily Telegraph in the Games Room; teenagers had hardly been invented and we were essentially very cowed pre-teenagers. The record player in the Music Room was only used for classical music on 78's. To be specific, the updated hair-styles [on the 1957 edition of Meredith and Co., pictured left] are wrong. We had a 'short, back and sides' cut about once a month, leaving us tousle-haired and essentially ungroomed [pictured, below, right] - not long and slicked back [per Vernon]. I think we would have considered that look to be a bit 'spivvy'. A few boys came back from holiday with Crew cuts.

Uniforms

Blazers and short grey flannel trousers were Sunday-best so not likely for japes and scrapes. The white edging on blazers in the school photo was used to signify that cricketing colours had been awarded.

I can't speak for other schools since we only met them in sports kit. In the summer we wore fawn 'Aertex' short-sleeve shirts, red tie, khaki shorts with a 'snake belt', ankle socks, and sandals on a daily basis, with a V-neck school pullover when the weather was bleak. We had full-length dressing gowns - not the jacket-style theatre dressing-room look. Pyjamas were not quite as bold-striped [pictured above, left] as your Uncle Sam's trousers.

I rather like writing these emails, so keep on asking the questions. I hope you are making sense of the contemporary vernacular!

I hope I am, too! It would seem the Brocks [C. E. and H. M.] both seem to have had the correct hairstyle of a prep school boy in place, as described above. The long hair illustrated by "Vernon" [circa 1957] wouldn't have been quite accurate, so it seems that hair might simply have been updated to nudge sales along. But Barry does point out: "In those less egalitarian times, there were plenty of publications (including comics like The Dandy, and Enid Blyton's Malory Towers novels) that suggest that there was entertainment value in the doings of the posh kids."

I certainly owe many thank to Barry for helping me steer through British history, geography, and popular culture. I can't even begin to say how much I appreciate his patience and his knack for shaping the details of the world I'm exploring!

It's our Memorial Day holiday this Monday and we have a long weekend to celebrate, barbecue, and hit the beach. It was created as Decoration Day after the War Between the States, but was adapted following the First World War. It's a different holiday than our Veteran's Day [formerly Armistice Day] which I believe would correspond with the U. K.'s Remembrance Day.

Nonetheless, it's also the unofficial kick-off of summertime in the U. S., the calendar be damned! Have a great weekend!

Minor and Major Arrives via Royal Mail!

Many thanks to Heather at Peakirk Books in Nr Fakenham, Norfolk, not only for the information she provided me earlier via e-mail, but for the edition of Minor and Major by George Mills that arrived today!

While the first edition, illustrated by John Harris, in the British Library is dated 1939, this edition predictably carries no date nor the name of the illustrator(s). Once again, exactly as in my edition of King Willow by Mills, we find it was published by Spring Books, Spring House, Spring Place, London NW5, and printed in Czechoslovakia.

The title page and dust jacket proclaim it to be part of the "Fanfare Series", and many other titles in the series—including King Willow—are listed. Among them are: The Clue in the Castle, The Missing Speed Ace, Backstage with Peggy, The Rawhide Kid, The Savages on Gale Island, The Rivals of Rookwood, The Island Mystery, The Secret of the Study, Holiday Adventure, The Riddle of the Blue Moon, and Speed Dermot.

This edition has 240 pages, a full-colour, unsigned frontispiece [the lustre of which is diminished by having been printed on matte paper] and four black-and-white illustrations throughout. The unsigned full-colour illustration on the dust jacket is not the same one found inside the text.

The dimensions of the book, exactly the same as Fanfare Series companion King Willow, may have been conceived by one Benedict Thomas—something we'll examine in a subsequent post!

I have a copy of Meredith and Co., already noted as being part of something called the "Viscount Series" and having been published by a house suspiciously similar in all ways to "Spring Books". That edition is also undated, but has a gift inscription written by the original owner apparently dating it as at least having been purchased 1957.

The other two nearly identical editions suggest they have been modified from Meredith's slightly larger format. That also suggests they are both more recent than 1957—moving their publication dates into my own lifetime, having been born in 1958.

King Willow and Minor and Major, even more so than Meredith and Co., have an appearance similar to vintage 1946-1965 [5th format] editions of the Hardy Boys mystery series I'd seen and read in the 1960s.

Using 1958 as a target date, selected for both its proximity to 1957's Meredith and Co. reprint and it being the year of my birth, let's say Mills was paid directly for the rights to also reprint King Willow and Minor and Major. Unless the books were published posthumously, he'd have been earning an income from his 1930's written work virtually through 1960—assuming they had stayed available on booksellers' shelves for a year or two.

This is all suppostion, but we'd have to imagine George Mills, at this point in our investigation still a self-proclaimed Preparatory School Master, likely living somewhere in the U.K., in his early sixties [61 years old on 18 August, 1958, my own birth date] and still trading on his years teaching at prep schools during the worldwide Great Depression.

Or is it merely the heirs of George Mills who're reaping the benefits from these reprints, or perhaps his wife, Vera?

New information that was delayed by an incorrect spelling provides more insight into the answer to the above question…

Meredith and Co. Arrives Par Avion!

Meredith and Co. by George Mills arrived today via Royal Mail [par avion] from Chapter House Books in Shelbourne, Dorset, in the U.K. Here are the details on this edition:

Sales Order No.: 68472860

Bookseller: Chapter House Books (Member of the PBFA)

Payment Processed By: Abebooks

Estimated Delivery Date: May 26, 2010

Author: George Mills

Title: Meredith and Co

Bookseller Book No.: 5685

Book Description: The Viscount Series. Fair in fair, well worn, torn and plastic protected d/w. Spine cocked, cloth crinkled, edge of boards faded and bumped, corners bumped, owner's inscription (dated 1957) on fep, front hinge weak, pages browned, spotting to endpapers, gatherings strained.

Date Processed: March 3, 2010

*** Your special instructions to the bookseller: Thank you! Also, if there is anything you can tell me about the author, George Mills, I would very much appreciate knowing it. Biographical information on the internet has been difficult to find.

In an email time-stamped that same day, Wednesday, March 03, 2010, 4:15 PM, Claire Porter of Chapter House Books [pictured, right] responded to my request for info, and flatlined my search for information about G.M., at least from her direction:

Sam

Thank you for your prompt response, the book went in the post today. I am afraid that I haven't been able to find anything out about the author, sorry.

Many thanks for the order

Regards
Claire

That's okay, Claire. It can't always be 84 Charing Cross Road, you know. The book you've sold me itself has some peculiar clues in it that I'll try to unravel in another posting here.

Meanwhile, let's look at some basics. This edition is from the "Viscount Series" intended "For Boys and Girls", published by Andrew Dakers Ltd., Spring House, Spring Place, London NW5, although it was "Printed in Czechoslovakia". Other titles in the series are listed as Ace Carew, The Black Ghost, Dangerous Road, Mystery at Gull's Nest, Shy Girl at Southdown, Jenny's Exciting Term, and Jenny of the Fourth. It has 232 pages, one full-color frontispiece printed on glossy paper opposite the title page, and three black & white illustrations.

My undated edition of King Willow was published by Spring Books, Spring House, Spring Place, London NW5, and also printed in Czechoslovakia. King Willow is listed as part of the "Fanfare Series" intended "for boys and girls". Other titles in the series include The Kestrels Plot Adventure, Tom Merry & Co. of St. Jim's, The Hoax of a Lifetime, The Mysterious Orchard, Judy's Triumph, The Secret of the Red Mill, and The Unknown Adventurer. It has 256 pages, one full-color plate opposite the title page, and three black & white illustrations. King Willow is ostensibly a sequel to Meredith and Co., with many of the same characters.

The overall quality of the printing is much better in King Willow than Meredith and Co., despite the fact that what appears to have been the same publisher printed both books in post-war Czechoslovakia.

The dust-jacket art for Meredith is simply a very poorly registered four-color copy of the color plate found inside the book. Willow features a full-color dust jacket with original art that is not found anywhere within the text.

The full-color art in King Willow is signed "Tom Thursby". The single full-color plate in Meredith and Co. is simply signed "Vernon". None of the black & white illustrations from either book are signed by the pen-and-ink artist.

It's difficult to tell if the total six B&W illustrations in both books were drawn by the same hand. The art in Meredith seems to be highly stylized to resemble woodcuts, while in Willow, the drawings are executed with far more modern and organic brush work executed along with the pen.

This 1957 edition of Meredith and Co. appears to be the same as that found in the collection of the British Library: Meredith and Co.; Andrew Dakers: London; printed in Czechoslovakia, 1957. Although there is no publication date, an owner's inscription reads: "to Mark with love from Paul. Xmas 1957". Or is that "7" perhaps a "4"...?

The most recent edition of King Willow on the shelves of the British Library is: King Willow (New edition); Oxford University Press: London, 1951. My copy is clearly not that edition, probably being an even newer "New edition".

So, circumstantial evidence seems to point to the fact that Andrew Dakers Ltd. and Spring Books may be the same publisher, sharing the same address in London and outsourcing printing to Czechoslovakia. Each sold a series of books "for boys and girls" by an array of authors, one called "Viscount" [emblazoned upon a crown], the other "Fanfare" [displayon a banner hanging from heraldic trumpets]. Both publishers neglected to date their publications. Are these publishers truly one and the same? If you have any information, I'd love to have it as well, please!

Regarding the illustrations, "Tom Thursby" handled color art for King Willow, and someone named "Vernon" did the color plate for the 1957 edition of Meredith and Co. Who, though, is "Vernon", and who did the six B&W illustrations for these texts? Have the B&W and/or color plates simply been re-used exactly as they were in the original editions of the two books, first published in the 1930s, or were they newly commisioned for these reprinted editions?

As always, if you have any information on "Vernon", or anything else, please leave it in the "comments" section of this entry, or e-mail it to me—and thanks!