Miscellaneous Section. This section contains stories and articles that don't particularly fit anywhere else or don't have enough issues scanned to justify a section of their own.

Time and Tide Christmas 1957 featured a short Greyfriars story.  I'm not sure if this is original or not but it is something Hamilton could have churned out over a cup of tea! You can find it here.

The Fleetway House book was by way of a souvenir published under the auspices of The Amalgamated Press and given to invited guests during a banquet held at the Fleetway House on Thursday November 7th 1912. Thanks to Naveed you can find a full description of this book and download link here.

Boys will be Boys by ES Turner was published in 1948 and provides an in depth analysis of the "Boys' Weekly" Genre. It was so successful that it had to be reprinted twice in the first week! Thanks to Harmsworth of the Scanarama Yahoo group you can read it here.

The BBC Children's Annual of 1956 contained a Greyfriars story "Just like Bunter" which appears to be original. Thanks to Martin S of the Greyfriars Index website you can find it here.

The Man who Shot the Constable is a story that appeared in the Jester on 17th August 1907. My thanks to John Tipper and Keith for sharing it.

The Tom Browne's Annual from 1904 featured a Hamilton story called "A Christmas Comedy", you can read it here. My thanks to Michael Bailey for sharing it.

Look and Learn was published weekly by Amalgamated Press. In 1963 the Editor experimented by reprinting some of the (drastically pruned) stories from the Magnet. The Editor received little reader reaction and the experiment was dropped after only 15 issues. The fact he selected sub stories for the first few issues probably contributed to the lack of interest! You can read one of the stories tucked in the back of issue 91 from 1963 here.

The Lone Texan was published by Atlantic Books in 1954. It isn't up to the quality of the Rio Kid but still worth a read. You can read or download it here.

“The House of Fear” by Frank Richards

Bear Hudson, London, 1946

This story was published as part of a series of mysteries by different authors, and follows his previous foray (as Michael Blake) into the murder-market, “Death in the Dark” (Merret, London, 1945).  Other titles include "The Curate finds the Corpse" by AT Rich, “Death Haunts the Charnel Estate" by Jackson Evans and "Terror Stalks by Night" by N. Wesley Firth.  All had vivid colour illustrations by HW Perl.

The ace detective, Duff Carter comes to the rescue again!  Duff Carter was forced to pierce a double-screen of plot and counterplot before he could drag from his hideout the man who had planned to kill Sir Arthur Torrington.  The mystery of the repeated attempts on his life deepened at every stage, and turned suspicion away from the hand which fired the shots, bringing the criminal within a hair’s breadth of accomplishing his fell aim, and baffling detection!

You can read a review by Nandu Thalange here and download the book here.

The Wonder Book of Comics was published by Odhams Press in 1949 and contained a story "Billy Bunter's Booby-Trap". In the Collector's Digest of June 1955 Bill Lofts questioned whether this was an original story or a reprint from the Holiday Annual and appealed to the readers for information about this story. Frank Richards replied the following month stating that it was an original story, the only story that he had ever wrote for Odhams. You can read the CD extracts here and the actual story here.

Eric Fayne was probably the greatest writer and promoter of the works of Charles Hamilton that ever lived. Eric was the owner and Headmaster of Modern School Surbiton for around 30 years. On what would have been the Hundredth birthday of Ralph Page (Eric's real name) former pupils of his school produced a newsletter celebrating his life. Thanks to Michael you can read it here.

Eric was also the recipient of the Silver Cross award from the "This England" magazine in 1988. Thanks to Naveed you can read the article here.

Derek Adley and Bill Lofts received many requests for information on post war Greyfriars so they decided to publish a list of post war Bunter stories. You can read the 1983 bibliography here.

In 1969 Bill Lofts and Derek Adley published a complete catalogue of old boys books - an absolutely fabulous resource. You can find it here.

Discovering Comics was published by Denis Gifford. Thanks to Slinky of the Scanarama Yahoo group you can read it here.

After the war Hamilton was unable to write Greyfriars stories as he had sold the copyright to the AP. He went on to create a number of new schools and in 1944 he created Carcroft School for  Hutchinson's Pie. A rather unusual story was later published in the 1951 Denis Compton Annual (Published late 1950) where it was revealed the character 'Turkey Tuck' was in fact Billy Bunter's cousin.  You can read the story here.

Series 4 (More commonly known as the "third new series") of the Nelson Lee ran from 25th February 1933 until 12th August 1933 before merging with the Gem.  In this series the AP reprinted a number of issues from the old series hoping to emulate the success of the Gem when they followed the same reprint policy. Unfortunately this wasn't to be and the Nelson Lee Library merged with the Gem after only 33 issues.

The final issue of the Nelson Lee contained a short St Jim's story "Rough on Ratty" presumably to introduce the characters to the Nelson Lee readers. Thanks to Michael Bailey you can read the story here.

J S Butcher: Greyfriars School, A Prospectus was published by Cassell posthumously in 1965. There were various references and reviews in the Collector's Digest of that year but strangely Eric Fayne and the readers of the Collectors Digest had never heard of JS Butcher. The book contains lists, maps and articles related to Greyfriars in the earlier years but as most of the detail came from articles published in the Greyfriars Holiday Annuals by substitute writers the information contained within cannot be relied on. It's still an entertaining read for all that. Thanks to Brian you can read the book here.

On his retirement as President from the Private Libraries association in 1974 the author Raymond Lister addressed the audience with "Charles Hamilton, Greyfriars and Myself". You can read it here. A brief obituary to Lister can be found here.

On 1st April 1974 the Sunday Mercury published a "Special" featuring comics and story papers of the past. You can find the supplement here.

An article in the "Punch" from 1960 by Frank Richards explains how he would shake up the Ministry of Education given the chance. Thanks to Naveed you can read the article here.

The Baptist Tabernacle, a church newsletter from the Baptist Church in Blackpool featured an article from Charles Hamilton on prayer and evolution. This article was also appeared in the The Charles Hamilton Museum Illustrated. I'm unsure where it first appeared as both versions were reprints. You can read it here.

In Your Aviary magazine from August 1949 featured a Hamilton article on animal cruelty - you can read it here. The magazine was renamed "Feathered Friends" after only two issues. On Page 23 of CD issue 435 Bill Lofts suggests Hamilton was responsible for a circus serial and a school story which appeared in issues 2-5.

Allan S has done some further research at the British Library and advises that two original stories written by Frank Richards appeared in “Feathered Friends”:
December 1949 issue: Uncle Comes For Xmas
January 1950 issue:  No Pudding for Podgers! (Cunliffe School)

The December 1949 issue also contains a photo of Frank Richards and a word competition set by him.

The circus serial that Bill Lofts thought might be Hamilton is by a Sydney Roberts and the writing style bears no resemblance to Hamilton.

Poetry London issue 15 from May 1949 featured one of Hamilton's poems. You can red it here.

Hamilton wrote a number of stories featuring Silverwings the fairy to entertain his young niece Una Hamilton Wright. A number of these stories were reprinted in the Collectors Digest Annual. You can read two of the stories by clicking on the links below-

Silverwings and the Beaver CDA 1995            Silverwings at Christmas CDA 1998

The Modern Boy Annual was published by the Amalgamated Press and ran from 1930-1940. As far as I am aware the only original Hamilton story to appear in this publication is "The Pearler of Madman Reef" which appeared in 1936. You can read the story here.

Keith Atkinson was a long time member of the Northern Old Boys Book Club and a regular contributor of articles and poems to the Collectors Digest. In the 1990s he privately printed four limited and signed booklets of his poems. Thanks to Naveed three volumes are available for download from the links below.

Poems of Greyfriars vol 2  Keith Atkinson    Poems of Greyfriars vol 3 Keith Atkinson    Poems of Greyfriars vol 4 Keith Atkinson

Book World Advertiser was a trade publication edited by Charles Skilton. Issue 4 contained an article explaining how post war Greyfriars made it into print. Thanks to Naveed you can read the article below-

Book World advertiser  Charles Skilton article on FR

Diamond Library issue 36 contains a story by Clifford Owen. Hamilton always denied writing a story for Aldine but it has been suggested that Aldine had resurrected an earlier story from another publication and had reprinted it. A scan of the story and some articles from the Collectors Digest are available from the links below.

Diamond Library 36

Collectors Digest articles referring to Diamond Library 36

A couple of facsimile issues of Picture Fun were published in the 1970s.  These have been scanned in full below to show what this comic/story paper was like.  The issues also contain some anonymous stories that were possibly written by Hamilton.

Picture Fun 307    Picture Fun 326