'London hatter Frederick Willis asserted that [Frank Richards's stories in the Gem and Magnet] taught him to be "very loyal" to the headmaster and teachers at his old Board school: "We were great readers of school stories, from which we learnt that boys of the higher class boarding schools were courageous, honourable, and chivalrous, and steeped in the traditions of the school and loyalty to the country. We tried to mould our lives according to this formula. Needless to say, we fell very short... Nevertheless, the constant effort did us a lot of good".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Willis Print: Serial / periodical
'London hatter Frederick Willis asserted that [Frank Richards' stories in the Gem and Magnet] 'taught him to be "very loyal" to the headmaster and teachers at his old Board school: "We were great readers of school stories, from which we learnt that boys of the higher class boarding schools were courageous, honourable, and chivalrous, and steeped in the traditions of the school and loyalty to the country. We tried to mould our lives according to this formula. Needless to say, we fell very short... Nevertheless, the constant effort did us a lot of good".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Willis Print: Serial / periodical
'Edward Ezard admitted that he and his friends read the Gem and Magnet for "the public school glamour". They thoroughly absorbed all the stock phrases and attitudes associated with Greyfriars, Frank Richards's mythical school.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Ezard Print: Serial / periodical
Edward Ezard admitted that he and his friends read the Gem and Magnet for "the public school glamour". They thoroughly absorbed all the stock phrases and attitudes associated with Greyfriars, Frank Richards's mythical school.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Ezard Print: Serial / periodical
'For Paul Fletcher, a colliery winder's son in a Lancashire mining town, the Magnet's appeal lay precisely in that "code of schoolboy honour". "Although I never realised it at the time, it proved to influence me more about right or wrong than any other book", he recalled, "And that includes the Bible". After all, the Greyfriars code "was as well defined as the scriptures [were] nebulous".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Paul Fletcher Print: Serial / periodical
'A.J. Mills, a charlady's son, recalled that his teachers made a pathetic attempt to teach an honour system but "the nearest any of us got to knowing about the honour system was to read the Magnet to find out how the other half lived".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: A.J. Mills Print: Serial / periodical
[Lionel Fraser dreamt unfulfilledly of Oxbridge]: 'Whatever resentment he may have felt was mollified by the Gem and Magnet, which "brought brightness into my rather humdrum existence, giving me an insight into the hitherto unknown life of upper-class children". Making sense of the school slang and rituals was not easy but Tom Merry and Harry Wharton "became my idols and I longed to be like them".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lionel Fraser Print: Serial / periodical
[Lionel Fraser dreamt unfulfilledly of Oxbridge]: 'Whatever resentment he may have felt was mollified by the Gem and Magnet, which "brought brightness into my rather humdrum existence, giving me an insight into the hitherto unknown life of upper-class children". Making sense of the school slang and rituals was not easy but Tom Merry and Harry Wharton "became my idols and I longed to be like them".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lionel Fraser Print: Serial / periodical
'Charwoman's son Bryan Forbes "devoured every word, believed every word" of the Magnet and Gem, "surrendering to a world I never expected to join". As an adult he appreciated that they rehashed the same plot week after week, all to buttress "our indestructible class system" [but he resented George Orwell critiquing them]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bryan Forbes Print: Serial / periodical
'Charwoman's son Bryan Forbes "devoured every word, believed every word" of the Magnet and Gem, "surrendering to a world I never expected to join". As an adult he appreciated that they rehashed the same plot week after week, all to buttress "our indestructible class system" [but he resented George Orwell critiquing them]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bryan Forbes Print: Serial / periodical
'Louis Battye, the spastic child of former millworkers, was at first utterly bewildered by the Gem and Magnet, because he was being educated at home and had no school experience of any kind... "But I persevered and eventually familiarised myself with the conventions of the form... I continued to read the Gem and Magnet religiously until I was fourteen or fifteen, and from them I received what might be called the Schoolboy's Code"... [which] enabled him to get along with other children when he was sent to Heswall Hospital'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Louis Battye Print: Serial / periodical
'Louis Battye, the spastic child of former millworkers, was at first utterly bewildered by the Gem and Magnet, because he was being educated at home and had no school experience of any kind... "But I persevered and eventually familiarised myself with the conventions of the form... I continued to read the Gem and Magnet religiously until I was fourteen or fifteen, and from them I received what might be called the Schoolboy's Code"... [which] enabled him to get along with other children when he was sent to Heswall Hospital'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Louis Battye Print: Serial / periodical
'V.S. Pritchett furtively devoured the Gem and Magnet with a compositor's son: both adopted Greyfriars nicknames and slang. Pritchett's father eventually found them, burnt them in the fireplace and ordered the boy to read Ruskin, though there was no Ruskin in the house'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Serial / periodical
'V.S. Pritchett furtively devoured the Gem and Magnet with a compositor's son: both adopted Greyfriars nicknames and slang. Pritchett's father eventually found them, burnt them in the fireplace and ordered the boy to read Ruskin, though there was no Ruskin in the house'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Victor Sawdon Pritchett Print: Serial / periodical
'Amy Gomm, an electrician's daughter, discovered the erotics of the text in some old Gems and Magnets she found in a cupboard. "What a joy to share my bed with Tom Merry and his chums, and that other band of derring-doers, Harry Wharton & Co. My excitement knew no bounds. My indiscretion was equally boundlesss". When she told her parents about the papers, they naturally burned them'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Amy Gomm Print: Serial / periodical
'Amy Gomm, an electrician's daughter, discovered the erotics of the text in some old Gems and Magnets she found in a cupboard. "What a joy to share my bed with Tom Merry and his chums, and that other band of derring-doers, Harry Wharton & Co. My excitement knew no bounds. My indiscretion was equally boundlesss". When she told her parents about the papers, they naturally burned them'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Amy Gomm Print: Serial / periodical
'After Dennis Marsden won an exhibition to St Catherine's College, Cambridge his parents, solid Labour supporters, "found supreme happiness sitting on the Backs looking over the river and towards King's college. For my father, Lord Maulever (of Billy Bunter and the Magnet) might have walked that lawn; Tom Brown must have been there, and the Fifth Form from St Dominic's. He had read The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green at Oxford, and saw that I had a "gyp" (as Verdant Green had a "scout"). He imagined how my gyp would shake his head and say (as Verdant Green's scout always said), "College Gents will do anything". All I could say... couldn't convince my parents that that powerful Cambridge image of my father's schoolboy reading wasn't my Cambridge".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marsden Print: Serial / periodical
'Hymie Fagan, an East End Jewish Communist, picked up public school ethics from the Gem, the Magnet and the stories of Talbot Baines Reed. He once declined to run in an athletics event because "It seemed to me, under the influence of the boys' books I had read, that it was dishonourable to run for money".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hymie Fagan Print: Serial / periodical
'Hymie Fagan, an East End Jewish Communist, picked up public school ethics from the Gem, the Magnet and the stories of Talbot Baines Reed. He once declined to run in an athletics event because "It seemed to me, under the influence of the boys' books I had read, that it was dishonourable to run for money".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hymie Fagan Print: Serial / periodical
[Harry Burton recalled' "we wallowed in Eric and St Winifred's and other school stories, especially Talbot Baines Reed's"...[Burton] like other working class children preferred Frank Richards to Empire Day, simply because the former was a more reliable guide to the reality he knew'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry Burton Print: Serial / periodical
'he swapped and shared books, especially Billy Bunter stories. ("[Bunter's] roars and squeaks of anguish were constantly imitated then and for years after", says Sutton; "Philip seemed to identify with Bunter up to a point.")'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin Print: Book
Tues. Sent letter to Findlay. Fine day. Nil by mail. Read 2535 Mayfair by Frank Richardson.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Thomas Print: Book
