The Eric Parker Story

From the files of Peter Haining this draft of a piece by W.O.G. ('Bill') Lofts on the great Sexton Blake illustrator Eric Parker (1898 - 1974). It was published in the early 1980s in the Australian magazine Collector's Digest.

The Eric Parker Story.

By W.O.G. Lofts.

For over twenty years, it was my good fortune and privilege to meet many Directors, Editors, sub-editors, authors, and artists, not only down Fleet Street, but in the home of it all at Fleetway House in Farringdon Street, the home of the mighty Amalgamated Press. I use the expression 'fortune' in the sense, that living in London, it was quite easy for me to make these short trips.

Always firmly believing in sharing information with others not so fortunate, I used to write up many of these events in the various magazines circulating at the time. Nearly all personalities I'm glad to say, freely gave me information not only about themselves, but about the papers they were connected with in pre-war days. Papers that gave so much pleasure to us,

Charles Hamilton and 'The Modern Boy'

Found among the extensive papers of Peter Haining this article on an old magazine for boys The Modern Boy by the late Tom Ebbage, an Australian book collector also known as Harry Wharton and part of a long gone Sydney 'hobby circle.' The article appeared in the defunct magazine Golden Hours in 1987.

"THE MODERN BOY" - AHEAD OF ITS TIME

- Tom Ebbage

As we all know, Charles Hamilton with the help of a number of "substitute" authors, wrote most of the Greyfriars and St. Jims school stories in the "Magnet" and the "Gem" commencing in 1907 and 1908.

From February 1915 until April 1926 he also wrote nearly all of the 524 Rookwood school stories which appeared in "The Boy's Friend". Thus for over eleven years he kept three different schools going simultaneously, which was a remarkable task.

When the Rookwood school saga concluded in 1925 he was allowed only a little less than two years to concentrate on the Greyfriars and St. Jims stories. Then on 11th February 1928 commenced THE MODERN BOY, and from the first issue, and with some intervals, Charles Hamilton wrote so many different yarns in this paper, that it could truly be said that he was the leading author in three different "companion papers" until they terminated in 1939 and 1940.

Hamilton began his career in THE MODERN BOY with “King of the Islands”, a stirring yarn of adventure by air, land and sea.