'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 shakes 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: Book
'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: Book
[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: Book
