CAPTAIN CHARLES MAURICE DOWN
Charles Maurice Down was a
senior member of staff at Amalgamated press dealing with their juvenile
department. The editor of “Modern Boy”
was Charles Boff and Charles Down was his superior. W. E. Johns would have known Down as he had
been submitting artwork to “Modern Boy” and then articles as their ‘Air
Expert’.
When Johns was the editor of
“Popular Flying” magazine, he commissioned Down to write an article in the
series “My Most Thrilling Flight” and this article appeared in the April 1935
edition (see below). It was never
collected in the June 1936 book “Thrilling Flights”,
presumably because it was about balloon, rather than aircraft, flight.
I speculate that Down may
very well have been the person who decided to allow W. E. Johns’ Biggles
stories from “Popular Flying”, originally published in “Popular Flying”
magazine, and subsequently gathered and expanded with other stories in “The
Camels are Coming” to be published in “Modern Boy”. Certainly, these Biggles stories were first
published in “Modern Boy” in issue 257, dated 7th January 1933. Now, I have a first edition of “The Camels
are Coming” dedicated to “C. M. Down” by W. E. Johns. This book, the first ever Biggles book, was
published on 7th September 1932.
If Johns gave a copy of the book to C. M. Down, it may very well have
been my very book that Down read and decided that – with suitable amendments –
the Biggles stories could appear in “Modern Boy”. Of course, the Biggles stories were initially
written for an adult audience and contain swearing and the drinking of hard
liquor; All these references are removed when the Biggles stories appeared in
“Modern Boy”.
POPULAR FLYING – APRIL 1935
In my first edition copy of “The Camels are Coming” –
dedicated to C. M. Down by W. E. Johns, on Page 158 there is a handwritten
pencil note.
It is against the passage in “The Boob” where Biggles
gives a newly arrived Algy advice on how to stay alive as a pilot.
There are pencil lines down the side of the text and
the words “The art of war flying in a nutshell” are written.
Was this written by C. M. Down in the book when he
read it? Or had W. E. Johns written this
before giving it to him?
Or was it merely written in by a later owner?
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