Schoolgirls' Picture Library

[Kate Mary]

Many years ago I was a great fan of the Schoolgirls' Picture Library which ran from 1957 to 1965 and which was then renamed June and School Friend Picture Library and ran for several more years. A selection of early titles are available on the Comic Book Plus website. The stories are complete, free to read and legal. They are great fun, I'll post a link if anyone is interested.

https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=3117

[Katharine]

That sounds good. I had a quick look at the link, but got overwhelmed with 'Cookie' options, and wasn't sure how to override them.

I'll give it another try later though, when I've more time to make sure I've rejected everything!

I'd be interested to read more - my mother had a few which I used to love reading (I hope she still has them somewhere). If it's the magazine I'm thinking of, it had some stories about girls in grey cloaks, which I particularly liked.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks, Kate. I haven't time for a proper look at the moment but it sounds good.

[timv]

I've been using the ComicBookPlus collection for compiling my schools fiction book's chapter on 1950s girls school and adventure/ mystery serials, and have found it very useful for getting an idea of the main themes and the portrayal of the social history of the era. Its stories, both the 'text only' ones and the (mostly post-1954) comic strip ones give a good idea of what the era was like in terms of social attitudes as experienced by the readers as well as the writers - with a lot of apparent influence from 'P G Wodehouse' or 'Agatha Christie' style mysteries featuring thefts from or skulduggery in country house estates, whose servants are polite and deferential to Our Schoolgirl Heroines . Unlike in the mostly earlier text only stories, the authors are rarely given any attribution so it's difficult to find out who wrote or drew them - but from the style and the themes I reckon that most are done by the usual staff of the 'School Friend' girls' magazine which had the same publishers. (Some of the stories are direct copies of or spin-offs from the SF serials, or closely copy what happens in them.)

The 'school girl detective team in grey cloaks' stories referred to would probably be the most famous of the School Friend serials, 'The Silent Three', where a trio of girls of about fourteen (Betty, Peggy, and Joan) at a posh boarding-school acted as a Robin Hood style 'righters of wrongs' group in dealing with bullying or crooked prefects or (when on holiday) country house staff, often in beating them in Famous Five-style treasure hunts . But the 'secret society in ghostly outfits' battling crooks and bullies theme goes right back to the 1930s, as do most of the school and detective mystery themes. The groups of young detectives were however all single-sex at boarding-schools, and notably very few State schools featured - as with text publications, the market was clearly 'aspirational' and inspired by the popularity of Frank Richards/ Charles Hamilton's 1900s- 1940s Billy Bunter stories. Most of the writers were men, except in the 'Eagle' comic's female counterpart , 'Girl'; and most of them had worked with Richards/ Hamilton on his 'Gem' and 'Magnet' magazine serials or had been among his 1910s-20s readers.

The concept of a mixed boy and group of detectives/ adventurers originated with E Nesbit in the 1890s, but was rare until Enid's 1940s creations except for the 'Girls Crystal' team of 'Merrymakers' boys and girls at a 'Sixth Form college' style US school and on board cruise-ships from 1936. These were however rather older than the FF or the Find Outers, enabling the boys to drive cars when chasing crooks though they had a girl leader, so Enid pioneered having a group aged 11-14 or so.

[Kate Mary]

A rare example of a mixed-sex, hooded cloak wearing detective secret society was the Grey Ghosts. Although set in a boys' school the heroine of the stories is the headmaster's daughter. There are several of their adventures on the Comic Book Plus website and they might be the ones Katharine remembers (The Silent Three wore green silk robes if memory serves). They were originally text stories written by Dorothy Page (a pseudonym for a male writer of course) appearing in the Girls' Crystal weekly and in the annuals.

Thank you for your interesting post Tim. The first story in the Schoolgirls' Picture Library is another example of a detective secret society, all girl this time and pretty much clones of the Silent Three.

[Katharine]

The story about the headmaster's daughter also sounds vaguely familiar. I'll have to ask my mother if she still has the magazines, and if so, if I can borrow them.

[Judith Crabb]

I'm not sure when they started their exploits but The Silent Three were perennial favourites still going strong and inspiring schoolgirls in the 1960s. For example 'The Silent Three in the Highlands. A thrilling story featuring a school secret society' by Helen Crawford was published in 1960 as No. 337 in the 'Schoolgirl's Own Library', with double columns closely printed to provide 'Hours of Happy Reading'. In 1962 it appeared in comic book style in 'Schoolgirls Picture Library' No. 159, 63 pages of 'Thrilling Adventure of this Daring Secret Society', only to re-appear in 1967 abridged to 56 pages in 'June and School Friend and Princess Picture Library' No. 426. I think that the Grey Ghosts are what Katharine remembers, equally ripping yarns.