A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF CAPTAIN W. E. JOHNS
PART THREE
Please note that this brief summary of Johns' amazing life is just
that, a brief summary. If you are interested in the full details of his life
you MUST read By Jove,
Biggles! - The Life of Captain W. E. Johns by Peter Berresford Ellis and Jennifer Schofield. This
well researched and comprehensive account has just (August 2003) been reprinted
by Norman Wright and
is limited to 300 signed copies.
THE INTER-WAR YEARS
As editor of POPULAR
FLYING magazine, Johns
was an outspoken critic of the Government's air policy in the 1930's.
Appeasement could only lead to war and of course, he was right. The monthly
'Popular Flying' soon became the best selling aviation magazine in the world.
By 1934, its circulation was 24,500 a month. In 1935, John Hamilton sold
Popular Flying Ltd, as it then was, to George Newnes Ltd and Johns was asked to
stay on as editor. Johns also began to contribute regular articles to 'My
Garden' magazine and his regular column was called 'The Passing Show'.
In 1937 Doris and Bill Johns moved to Colley Chase, Reigate Hill, Surrey. On 2nd April 1938, George Newnes Ltd launched a sister
paper to 'Popular Flying'. It was a weekly magazine called 'Flying' and Johns
was asked to edit that as well. It took many of the spill over articles for
which there was no room in the monthly. From 19th February 1938, Johns was also writing a regular weekly
column for 'The Modern Boy' called 'Let's Look Around'. As well as all
these commitments, Johns was also writing books at an astonishing rate, some 40
between 1931 and 1939!. He wrote many short stories, both for adult magazines
as well as for juvenile ones and many of these stories were later collected
into books. Johns' continued attacks on the Government upset prominent
politicians and they brought pressure to bear on George Newnes Ltd to have him removed
as editor of both of their flying magazines. His last editorial for the weekly
'Flying' magazine was on 21st January 1939. Both magazines were to later fold during the Wartime paper
shortages.
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
At 46 Johns was too old for
active service. Johns became a lecturer to the Air Defence Cadet Corp (later to
become the Air Training Corps in 1941). His biggest contribution to the War was
the encouragement of young men to train to be pilots by virtue of his Biggles
books. Recognising this, the Air Ministry asked Johns to create a female
counter-part to aid recruitment to the W.A.A.F. (Women's Auxiliary Air Force)
and so Worrals appeared in 1941. The War Office didn't want to be left out of
this excellent recruiting method and so in 1943, commando officer Gimlet
appeared. The effect of Johns' books is not to be underestimated. Many pilots
were to say that their inspiration had been the Biggles books of W. E. Johns.
On 3rd October 1939, Johns' son, Jack, married Sabena
Hammond, a nurse who looked after his mother. In 1941 John Hamilton Ltd ceased
trading, effectively being bombed out of business. Doris' brother Howard Leigh,
the artist, died at the age of 32 of cancer on 6th February 1942. Doris was worried about the Johns'
business dealings. At this time, he wrote and sold his Biggles books for a one
off payment of £250 and received no royalties. She persuaded him to employ a
literary agent and Johns went to see Peter Watt of A. P. Watt. Their first move
was to persuade Oxford University Press to give Johns royalty payments but the
phenomenal sales that Biggles books were to achieve did not really happen until
after the Second World War, so they chose to let the books be taken over by
Hodder and Stoughton. In the Autumn of 1944, after 5 years of bombing, Doris
and Bill Johns moved to Pitchroy Lodge, Grantown-on-Spey, Morayshire. The
September 1944 issue of 'My Garden' magazine carried no Johns column for the
first time since 1936 and in February 1947 Johns wrote his last article for
that periodical called 'The Show has Passed' to explain his departure.
THE POST WAR YEARS
Johns continued to write his
books. For the post-war Biggles stories, Biggles was to join the 'Air Police'
which was not an original Johns' idea. The Air Police had been created by
writer, John Templer, author of 'Jaggers of the Air Police' in 1936).
Templer was a friend and former business partner of Johns. Johns sold serial
rights to various newspapers and magazines as well as one-off stories to the
vast number of children's annuals being published. Compilations of these
stories were regularly published in book form. In 1953, Johns moved back from
Scotland to a mansion at Park House, Hampton Court, which overlooked the Royal
Paddock. Johns often saw and heard the Queen and her family. On 15th March 1954, Johns' son, Jack, died from a
combination of multiple sclerosis, diabetes and tuberculosis. Jack's mother was
not to die until 1st
April 1961. By this
time, it was not really possible for Doris and Bill Johns to marry without
creating a scandal because it would reveal that they were not married. A
scandal would have damaged Johns' reputation and also his book sales. The
post-war years saw the sale of translation rights to the Biggles books to many
countries. They were extremely successful. In 1954, Johns wrote the first of a
series of science fiction stories and as a result stopped writing Worrals and
Gimlet stories. By 1964, the UNESCO Statistical Yearbook placed Biggles books
29th on a list of the most translated books in the world and Biggles was the
most popular juvenile hero in the world. However, sales in North America were
low and Johns never really cracked the American market. The books were
considered just 'too British'. Biggles stories were serialised on the radio and
also appeared in 1960 in a television series (although Johns' actual stories
were not used). In the mid 1960's Johns began to face criticism that his books
were racist and sexist as well as jingoistic although anybody who has read all
of the books knows that such criticisms cannot be sustained. It was on the 21st June 1968 at 8.30 a.m. that William Earl Johns
(born 5th February 1893) stopped mid-sentence, whilst writing 'Biggles Does Some Homework' in order to make himself and Doris a cup
of tea. He went upstairs to her and sat in his armchair and suffered a fatal
heart attack and died immediately. He was 75 years old. Doris was to die on 26th September 1969 from cancer.
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