MY DAYS OF RADIO FUN.

In writing these notes on my career as an editorial assistant of the Amalgamated Press I am looking back to 1943. I started in the late summer of 1942 on the publishing department of the same firm, then in the spring of the following year persuaded the supervising editor of a group of comics to work as his assistant first on the comics Tip Top and Jingles, then on Radio Fun. This is 56 years ago, and it is like looking back to a different age and another world. Yet it is as yesterday for me, because it was then all the important decisions were made by me upon which the rest of my life was to be based... my eventual marriage partner and my full time service for Jesus Christ. 

The intervening years between 1947 and 1990 were completely occupied by these two resolutions. Then at the end of 1990 I retired from my last pastorate, to spend my time wrestling with ill health. I am now sufficiently well to try to overcome the nostalgia of resurrecting my past life. My sources, besides my memory, are contained in three blue bound volumes of Radio Fun, 1944, 1945, 1946, and Radio Fun Annuals, plus a cardboard box with comics, including the last ones I was engaged with until I entered Spurgeon's College late September 1947. 

The date of the annuals is surprising to me. But then they were always compiled many months in advance of their publication and they did not start until the war ended. There are six, one is a dummy copy, originally for an earlier year than its date 1948. We were still short of paper in those days. The five are 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, and 1949. I played an active part in the composition of them all, although I shall have to check out the last to be sure how much. "Between You and Me" page 86 sounds familiar, but it may have been restyled by someone else. This volume was certainly after my time. 

The covers of the annuals 1947 and 1948 were mine, and I am especially proud of them. In the box there is a coloured sketch of the 1947 cover which I took into the supervising editor, Mr. Stanley Gooch. He was taken aback. He designed the previous cover. "We don't want that kind of thing," he said, pointing at Schnozzle Durante followed by Petula Clark on the fairground roundabout. I had her waving a handkerchief under Jimmy Durante's large nose. I had never intended the way the Editor took it, but I felt vindicated when he took the sketch and passed it to the professional artist he had commissioned. Next year my idea was eagerly accepted. But by the following year, all the lads from the armed forces were home, and a Sidney Rossiter, ex RAF, was my senior so he took the prerogative. 

The office at that time was made up of myself, Sidney Bicknell and Rossiter. Bicknell was ex Royal Navy and a very gentle man. Mr. Gooch obviously thought Rossiter was crowding me out and I was offered an office on my own. Since everywhere was over crowded I was much honoured. The idea had probably come from the director, Mr. Garrish himself. I refused, however. I was on my way to theological college although I had not broken the news to my employers or colleagues. 

My decision was hard. I often hankered after the days of editorial freedom that I knew during the war. But the war was over. I had no desire for competing with the veterans, who like my brother, had been through fire and water to gain victory. I had a prior call and now as an old man I can see how wise the Lord was. Indeed, every move I have ever made, in retrospect, I can see was ordained. Although on each occasion the ideas were over ruled. 

I entered college to become a famous preacher, but God wanted me to be Christian.

I went to my first church at Hampstead to establish myself as a preacher, and God called to be an evangelist. I went to my second church to make a reputation, but God called me into Christian teaching. I came to this area where I have now lived for 28 years to use it as a spring board to somewhere else, and God has anchored me here. Each time my moves were right. By 1947 the time had come for me to leave journalism. By 1951 the time was right for me to live in a first floor flat in Hampstead. By 1955 I had to move into a house for the sake of my daughter who was born at the end of 1954. By 1957 I had to buy a home of my own to bring up my family which was about to be increased with a son. By 1964 I had to move to Sussex by the Sea both for the health of my children and the welfare of my parents. In 1971 I had to move to the New Forest to call home those the Lord had already elected for salvation. But it all began in 1943.

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Other Writings and Publications

Under the pseudonym of Noel Swift:

Monster Book for Children    1947    Dean and son Ltd.                 One Man's Loyalty

Other pseudonyms that Jack used were Duncan Woods and Janet Andrews.