DENIS Kilcommons’ excellent article (Monday, August 4), marking the 70th anniversary of the Beano will have stirred much grey matter.

I predate the Beano and the Dandy and grew up in the era of the Penny Dreadful and the Tuppenny Blood.

Delivered with the Sunday paper, first came Funny Wonder and Chips, one of which included cartoon comics of the tramps, Weary Willie and Tired Tim, among others.

The “talkies” had just arrived, as had a publication called Film Fun, containing a comic strip of Laurel and Hardy and others, and also a weekly story of a Private Eye – Sexton Blake and his assistant Ginger.

The forerunner of the “Bloods” was I think The Magnet, its main story being of a private boarding school, Greyfriars, and the exploits of pupils Harry Wharton and Co, and of course, fat boy, Billy Bunter (“Ouch, you cad!”). Topical Times was a popular sporting paper which often gave large photographs of famous sporting individuals.

Finally came the “Tuppenny Bloods”. Five in all, and one issued every weekday, they were, the Adventure, Rover, Wizard, Hotspur and Skipper and packed with thrilling episodes of our heroes.

Everyone had their favourites and our gang bought one each a week and then we swapped them, so we read them all!

Denis mentions “Wolf of Kabul”. Was he the one who had a native aide who carried a cricket bat as a weapon? (ie his Clicky bat) and Wilson, the superman and there was crippled international soccer player called “Limp-along Leslie”. I also recall a schoolmaster of some disposition in the Hotspur forever dashing about in mortar board and gown and waving his cane (was his name “Smudge”?

These stories were superbly composed (mainly by teachers and journalists, I am told) and in excellent English, so we just couldn’t help but improve our reading and spelling skills.

Recently I read that Ofsted was calling on schools to stock more action adventure books on their library shelves to inspire boys from deprived backgrounds to read via “Ripping Yarns!” In my day, schools didn’t have libraries and a trip to the public library in town was too expensive!

Denis thanked D C Thomson the publishers in Dundee. Perhaps he could introduce them to Ofsted! Much cheaper all round, and the kids would love those “Bloods!”

Fred Berry

Birchencliffe

Beware the pushchair Mafia

I WAS more than sorry to read in the Examiner about the gentleman who was not allowed to travel from Leeds to Huddersfield because he was in a disabled wheelchair. Rail officials said he would block the entrance.

Yet we see every day young girls with monstrous pushchairs cluttering the entrance of our buses.

On Thursday, July 24, I was on a bus from Waterloo. A young girl got on with one of these pushchairs and she told an elderly lady to move. The girl was not satisfied making the elderly lady move, she told her “we pay, you don’t”. The lady came to sit next to me and she told me she was 89 last January and had never been so insulted in her life.

When a lady 89 years of age is turfed out of her seat by a pushchair, it’s time the girl had a think about what she did.

Henry Barrowclough

Waterloo

How councils wrecked a town

I SHOULD like to offer two comments on William Kirby’s excellent letter (Mailbag August 6).

Firstly, there has already been a very thorough development study on the town centre, by Building Design Partnership, a distinguished firm of architects. (I have a copy beside me as I write).

The then Council picked out one or two bits, implemented them so incompetently as to destroy their usefulness, and ignored the rest, which included severe warnings about the effect of town centre supermarkets, and the danger of inadequate car parking.

Secondly, Kirklees has never been able to give its wholehearted attention to Huddersfield; not since Edward Heath tied it up in a bundle with the scruffy, run-down towns of the Heavy Woollen District.

Since then the roles have been reversed. Those towns are now bright, clean, relatively prosperous, and they all have decorative signs saying “Welcome to...”

Unfortunately this has been at the expense of once-wealthy Huddersfield, the now-scruffy, run-down town which dare not mention its name.

Arthur Quarmby

Holme

Traffic hazard in Longwood

MY bone of contention is the two junctions from Leymoor Road on to Stoney Lane and from Stoney Lane on to Ayton Avenue in Longwood.

With cars parked on both sides there is barely enough room for single lane traffic or to even turn the corner. Many near misses have also occurred because vehicles are parked right on the junction.

It is also dangerous to try to cross any of these junctions because the parking blocks the sightlines both of cars and pedestrians.

When asking the police or ROSS to deal with the problem they say it is the other’s responsibility. What has to occur to get this problem dealt with? A minor bump? Or a child being killed? Either way, emergency services would struggle to negotiate this area, putting others lives at risk or damaging your cars.

If you are a resident please put your car away. If you don’t have ample parking but a front garden please make extra parking for your vehicles. And for those who do not have an area which can be converted – I beg you please to park responsibly!

Mrs T Stagg

Golcar