On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 at 18:05:22 in message
, ShawnD2112
wrote:
How about Biggles? I'd never heard of the character until coming here to
the UK but he's the childhood hero cum swashbuckling pilot that is
synonymous with flying over here. Every pilot is known as "Biggles" to
non-pilots.

Written between the wars, the series of childhood fiction follow the
adventures, back in the days when people still had adventures in the
uncharted parts of the Empire, of Pilot Officer Biggles in his various
flying machines around the globe. He was a WW1 fighter pilot hero who left
the service after war and went on to do much more interesting things like
discovering Inca treasure while in South America with a flying boat! I've
read a couple as an adult and they're fantastic yarns of the old-world sort.
Perfect for a kid to get lost in for hours at a time! I'd have devoured
them when I were a lad.

I read many of those books in my youth. I gave them all to my son and he
has added to them - I think he has around 72 plus of them now. No sex or
swear words. Biggles (Major James Bigglesworth) does smoke, but he does
not drink. No sex but lots of villains and only one book has a hint of
romance 'Biggles Fails to Return' as I recall. I didn't read them in the
sequence they were written - 'Biggles in Africa' was my first. Some of
the post Second World Two ones were not so good.

They are far from perfect but I loved them. I read them again and again.
--
David CL Francis