Rain Stopped Play - Time For A Trip On A Summer Special

In July 1963 I would have celebrated my seventh birthday which coincided with the advent of D.C. Thomson's Summer Specials featuring a combined Dandy/Beano version.

Whilst in our mind's eye the school summer holidays were always sunny the reality was that it sometimes rained, thus temporarily stopping play.

To break the monotony of being in the house I would take a wee wander up to Ewart's Newsagent's at Oxgangs Broadway. Alongside T.K. Francis' Drysalter's shop at Oxgangs Crescent, Ewart's was always the best and most interesting shop in the area to visit.

Not only was Ewart's chockful of sweets and toys but the counter was always full of comics including the annual summer specials

Photograph Lew Stringer

Although these comics may in the main have been targeted at the children of families going away in the train on holiday - not an overly-common experience for those growing up in Oxgangs - nevertheless for us home-birds they were of great appeal.

Photograph Lew Stringer

With their wonderful covers and some internal colour strips too they brightened up our day. There was something both exotic and familiar about seeing some of your favourites going off to the beach in their holiday costumes with their buckets and spades.

And then as I grew a little older being able to follow some of the more interesting characters such as 'Danny and his Iron Fish' or 'Kelly's Eye.'

Photograph Lew Stringer

Whilst it rained outside you were dry inside the shop and were transported away to another more magical place; far away from our guiders or bicycles imagine having your very own personal iron-fish that could both fly and go underwater!

After making your choice of summer special, with great anticipation it was thrilling to then run down Oxgangs Street home to my bedroom to sit on the window sill to follow what Desperate Dan; Alf Tupper or Johnny Cougar had been getting up to over the summer or an American comic or two.

Whilst they were of course fictional characters, in a strange way and in a small part of our imaginations they were very real to us too and an important part of the world of a child and a boy and then a youth. Comics both British and American were more than just about entertainment and transporting us away to a magical place on a wet afternoon in summer but also an important and integral part of the socialisation process at work moulding us into the people we became.