Summer Holiday specials part 2

As a few of you might just be aware I'm off for a few days with friends so won't be around on a few sites and that.

One thing I'll have with me though in time honoured tradition will be some reading material of the sort associated childhood holidays that I did talk about a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately this is 2018, not 2008 or even 1978 so rather than calling in my local newsagent who'd also stock cherryaid to go with the dandelion and burdock, I had to order them online to be delivered to the door.

The Beano is published weekly and thankfully back now in print after a digital only spell and so has new strips all of which have been themed on a Summer Holiday in Beanotown so we have such all time favourites as Minnie The Minx, Dennis the Menace (although like a few characters he's been toned down and redrawn since my childhood), Roger the Dodger, Ball Boy and the Bash Street Kids  in addition to newer series like Bananaman and Rubi JJ Pie Face.

This clearly while tapping into the retro market is mainly for today's boys and girls in their childhood world which while similar to ours needless to say has more celebrity and technology in than ours. 

One difference between the two is the Dandy as a comic no longer in weekly production, is more a retro summer special with reprints from previous ones from the 60's, 70's and 80's rather having a few new token cartoon strips drawn so it acts more as a compilation of past issues and in some ways pulls me more into that ten year old boy I was then reading Korky the Kat and Beryl the Peril and life in that era.

It's like stepping into the past and reading the same cartoon strips as is.

In general the printing quality was better than those I recall during the 1970's being not just more colourful but sharper

Summer Holiday specials

Summer for me was linked with vacations and one of things I always did on them was gather together some reading material to help pass the time away such as if I was on a deck chair on the beach or in the event of rain, not unknown in the UK to read when we couldn't go outside.

In my earlier years Whizzer and Chips featured reading them at infant and the first year of junior school and while I had different comics at home, I'd get the bumper Summer Special which was like a mini annual. This copy is from 1970 hence the old currency we only briefly handled before being decimalized the year after.
Tiger was always popular with me because it was more a sporting and boys own adventure type of comic that also had had "Roy of the Rovers" that spun out to a comic in its own right, about a grammar school boys footballing (or as I'd say soccer) adventures on and off the field. 
Soccer was a part of the glue that kept us boys together so we'd often share and talk about his adventures.
This edition from the early 80's shows a cricketing series which as sports go isn't something I got into at all although two of my closest male friends were really into it.

The Dandy was a big comic with me, usually I had three a week bought by my folks and relatives when I was with them such as weekends and so I'd nearly always get the Dandy's summer specials  of which this is another pre-decimalization edition with Korky the cat on the front cover.
It featured the iconic Desperate Dan cartoon strip.

In 1974 into what can be seen now as being a  more staid comic world Warlord was launched with its bright almost garish use of colour in what was in so many ways the boys own comic of the 1970's.
Regular editions featured stories based on various military campaigns of the past not least both World Wars with fairly realistic detail, informative articles about military medals, weaponry and military discipline.

For most of the 70's therefore this was one I always made a beeline to get on arrival each summer vacation as it often had things like posters and anyway I belonged to the fan club.
As to use a modern expression gender fluid I was I loved these stories and playing war games with boys being very much at home with it.

Churchtown Farm Field Studies Centre

I talk quite a bit in this blog about disability in my boyhood because it was central to many of my life choices or the choices others made for me in a era where things were either 'normal' or provided for "the handicapped" as the now un PC language put it by various charities presided over by the great and the good.

One thing that remains difficult is finding accessible places to stay that have disability faculities in them and also the kind of role models to help you take control of your life.

At the time a number of charities owned a few places and it was my school send me and a few others to a special centre in June of 1976 and again in 1978.

The place we went  was called Churchtown Field Studies Centre located in the pretty village of  Lanlivery, Lostwithiel, Cornwall which was open from 1975 to 2011 that was owned by the Spastics Society (who became SCOPE as 'Spastic' was a term of abuse they wanted to move away from) and in the period of my first visit it was opened by Royalty so I met them.

As was very much my want, I wore tailored shorts more like a junior boy when I was there even though the other boys had on longs despite being twelve and fourteen respectively at the time.

It was a place build mainly from disused farm buildings carefully converted  into full wheelchair accessible centre with accommodation block where we went on outdoor activities such as learning about nocturnal mammals setting humane traps to see them later, finding out about foxes, moths and butterflies  an rambling around the grounds.

It also served as a base to explore on free days the area so we went to the Wheel Martyn Museum, saw how china clay was made  and sent to Stoke on Trent for pottery production (where my local knowledge proved most useful!), visited Bodmin and saw Cornish street dancing  which was fun.

It was one the things I loved in that era because it helped me come out of my shell more given some of negative experiences of a few years before and not being really encouraged to explore nature as a disabled child, learning to take risks.