From the Editorial by B. Paddon: We are all pleased to hear of Brian Shaw’s record in the cricket team. He took eight wickets for twenty runs and so won a cricket ball from the Star newspaper. The prize is awarded to boys who do well at bowling in school cricket.

From the Headmaster’s Review by C. F. W. Hicks: I feel certain that all boys and their parents will wish to congratulate those responsible for the production of this issue of the school magazine. The size has been increased and a school photograph has been introduced. This has been done in spite of increasing difficulties, especially the cost of production. The income from sales will produce less than one-third of the total cost, and it is certain that even after allowing for the income from advertisements there will be a considerable debit balance on this issue. Our School Drama Group has offered the proceeds from their performances to the Magazine Fund to clear the debt and I hope that you will all give them your whole-hearted support, so that we can continue to produce the magazine in this more attractive form.

Contributor List – Click on items shown as links to jump to the entry

A Trip Down The Thames On A Tug by K. Waller
The King Of The Jungle by D. Evans
The Marines Attack! by Owen Bristowe
Jokes by D. Gadeke
A Hurricane by Roy Painter
Cricket by T. Burrow
Ambushed! by H. Polatch
Jokes by R. Maughan
The Pied Wagtail by P. Welch
The Tortoise by E. Butler
A Football Match by H. Golder
A Boy In North America by D. Eady
A Journey By Express Train by Arthur Poultney
The Sailor by J. Bailey
Last Man In by C. Costello
England V. West Indies by E. Hook
Covent Garden Market by David Cracknell
The Wise Boy by A. P. Hudson
Magazine Quiz by Mr. Cutting
A Walk In The Country by B. Burman
The Fair by F. Tebbs
The Derelicts by Frank Whitnall
Hobbies by Derek Gadeke
Canal Scene by K. Waller
The Worthy Ships by D. W. Evans
Into The Dentist’s Chair by Brian Bond
The Looking Glass by O. Bristowe
Home Sweet Home by Frank Hale
A Fight To The Finish by P. Phillips
We Attack At Dawn by D. W. Evans
Carver by W. Longley
Up The Amazon River by O. Bristow
Into The Unknown by Frank Hale
The Art Room by Derek Chambers
A Walk By Moonlight by Norman Gray
A Robbery At The Manor by Roy Elphee

A Trip Down The Thames On A Tug by K. Waller
One day during the summer holidays my uncle, who is a foreman lighterman on the Thames, asked me if I would like to go on a trip down the river on a tug, and my answer was yes. The next morning my grandfather and I caught an early bus to Blackwall Tunnel and when we got off the bus my uncle was waiting for us in the car. He took us through Blackwall Tunnel and on to a wharf at Greenwich, where we boarded the tug.The tug we went on had an electric engine and was one of the most powerful tugs on the River Thames. Its name was the Cullermix.
The captain of the Cullermix told us to go on to the bridge, where we would get an excellent view of the river while he went to get his orders from my uncle. When he had obtained his orders he told us that our destination was Putney Bridge and that we were going to tow three barges, two full and one empty.
The engine was started and we were off on our trip down the Thames. As we cruised along we passed by cargo boats that were being loaded or unloaded by cranes, while some were getting ready to sail to sea and others were being towed by small tugs. Just before we got to the Pool of London we passed by Cleopatra’s Needle, which has two lions with rings hanging from their noses on either side of the Needle. Not far away from Cleopatra’s Needle we passed some sailing barges and one of the most famous training ships for cadets, the Discovery. When we arrived at the Pool of London we saw Tower Bridge open and a large Swedish cargo boat that had one funnel and two masts pass under the bridge. Then after the Swedish boat had gone we went under the bridge and saw the Tower of London with it’s four white towers. Just before we reached London Bridge we let down our mast and funnel so that we could pass under the bridge easily. After London Bridge there is Westminster Bridge, where we saw the Houses of Parliament and the great clock, Big Ben. Over the top of the Houses of Parliament we could see the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, while on the river we saw some of the royal swans.
We passed under a lot more bridges until we came to our destination, Putney Bridge, and here we turned the boat round against the tide so that we could let the barges float into Putney Wharf. When the captain had seen that the barges were all safely tied up we started back for Greenwich. It was getting dark by the time we got there and I was very tired, but I had had a most enjoyable time.

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A Hurricane by Roy Painter
On the small island of Ilmato in the Pacific all was peaceful and quiet. The children were playing on the white stretches of sand. Others were in the water and the older ones in the surf outside the coral reef. Mothers were bending over their cooking pots preparing a meal. The men were making or repairing things for their home and hunting in the jungle for game. No white men ever visited the island for the islanders were savages. Two white missionaries landed on the island not very long ago. Their heads were now hanging in the chief’s hut and their bodies on the temple altar as sacrifices to their god.
Suddenly a fierce wind sprang up and black clouds appeared on the horizon. The sun went in as the low black clouds swept past it and blacked its warmth from the islanders. The gentle lapping of the waves turned into a larger swell. Rain started to beat down with fierceness on to the swaying palms and the huts of the islanders. Children began to cry as thunder crashed across the sky. By now the wind was screeching through the trees and the rain had become a running sheet of water and many of the frail huts had either been beaten to the ground or been swamped with gushing water. The chief’s hut, the largest of all in the village, was the strongest and this was therefore a place of refuge and was full of terror-stricken women and crying children. The men were out rescuing people trapped under fallen palms or huts.
The rain, continuing all through the night, ceased at dawn. When the rain slopped there were three houses left standing, but these were not safe. By mid-day the sun beat down with its warming heat. The ground by afternoon had dried and was normal except for dampness. The islanders were salvaging the wreckage of their homes and the women were preparing a meal, for they had not eaten for many hours.
A week later the village was looking the same again, and the usual daily work was being done. The children were playing in the surf, the men hunting, and the women preparing the mid-day meal.

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The Derelicts by Frank Whitnall
One of the most wonderful sights in the dock-yard to-day, is to see a great majestic sailing-ship, with its towering spread of canvas and its shining holystoned decks, but in reality it must be admitted that their absence from the seafaring world has made the shipping routes safer.
In almost every case it was a sailing ship that was mainly responsible for the menace of the derelicts, and their popular drifting ground was the North Atlantic trade route. Many of these abandoned hulks were old timber carriers, still fairly efficient relics of an earlier period when, as proud ocean going clippers, they held their heads (or bowsprits) high in all ports of the world. Later, almost unsinkable by the cargoes they carried, these mastless hulls driftly blindly at the mercy or the weather and the ocean’s tidal system, a menace to every seafarer.
Steamship derelicts are few and far between, but a case was recorded where in 1905 the crew of a ship called “Dunmore” had abandoned their ship off Newport, having lost her propeller. This ship drifted aimlessly in the main traffic lanes for eleven months before being finally lost sight of.
In December, 1894, a clipper named the “Arno” left New York bound for Liverpool, and during a fierce gale she was thrown on her beam ends until her hatches were almost submerged. An Italian ship called the “Etouria” appeared on the scene of the disaster and rescued the crew, and before abandoning the ship, made a large gaping hole in the upturned side to enable her to sink more quickly. Fine weather followed, and the “Arno” remained afloat and was eventually sighted by another steamer called the “Pinner Point.” This ship boarded the derelict, patched the hole in her hull which had been made by the “Etouria” and succeeded in getting the ship on an even keel. Afterwards she was brought safely into Queenstown by seven men, a truly incredible feat of seamanship.
Many derelicts seem to possess a strange kind of homing instinct which says much for the regularity of the ocean currents. As an example of this we may refer to the case of the “Alcestis”. She was a full-rigged New Zealand trader which caught fire just off Cape San Rogue, in Brazil, during December, 1894. Her crew decided to abandon her and when they were picked up by another ship they reported her as having been burnt out and sunk. In November 1901, a New Zealand steamer called the “Tutanekai” discovered a burnt-out wreck on Chatham Island, three hundred miles from the coast, it was confirmed that this wreck had not been there six weeks before, and an official board of enquiry was set up. The ship proved to be the “Alcestis” which, it was said, had remained afloat for nearly seven years, and had sailed over 9,000 miles, before reaching a point close to her original destination.
Just as incredible is the journey of the little schooner “Star” which left the Aleutian Islands for Hawaii on 1st June, 1893. She struck a shoal in the Hawaiian group of islands and the crew abandoned ship. Three weeks later a British ship, a barque called the “Doon” passed the ‘”Star” which remarkably had refloated itself and was sailing quite normally about seventy miles north of the shoal, but unfortunately the sea was too rough and no party was able to board the little derelict. Three months elapsed before the “Star” was again sighted and this time she was 400 miles west of San Francisco. In October of the following year she was once more seen off Fanning Island 1,100 miles from Honolulu. Four months later she was off Hull Island, seven hundred miles south west of Fanning Island.
Eighteen months of silence and waiting followed until August, 1896, when one of H.M. ships, passing one of the shoals in the Hawaiian group of islands, saw a small ship, identified later as a schooner, ashore and breaking up. It was the little “Star” which had returned to her resting place after three years wandering, during which she had covered over 6.000 miles, and at least three times that, when one makes allowances for zig-zagging courses.
In these present times the perils of these floating derelicts are not so great. If a wreck, dangerous to navigation and is known by the authorities to be afloat, a wireless message is sent out all over the world, until the menace is removed.
The perils of the sea are innumerable to our shipping lanes and the existing ones are quite enough for our seamen to deal with, without having troublesome derelicts floating aimlessly over the seven seas.

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Canal Scene by K. Waller

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Carver by W. Longley
A lad named Carver bought a Besa.
What a heap, what a geezer!
Timing wrong, valves burnt out,
Leaking tank without a doubt.
Ace mechanic then appears,
Uses clutch, changes gears.
First two working,
Third one jerking.
They settle down to days of work.
Then at last no more jerk.
So to the airfield then they go,
Open throttle. Tally ho!
Five climb on, one comes a cropper,
Sorry, he’s just hit a copper!

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The Art Room by Derek Chambers

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