Jeremy Briggs , a Jeff Hawke enthusiast and collector, has recently shown us very rare and interesting item from his
collection. We met Jeremy, a reviewer for the British sci-fi news site “Down the tubes” at the recent Cartoon arts festival in Kendal, where he showed us the “Jeff Hawke crewman’s handbook “ a little booklet which readers of the 1950’s Junior Express weekly could send away for in order to join the Jeff Hawke club and become a Space crewman. It is similar to, though not as substantial as the Horlicks spaceman’s handbook which was
issued at around the same time for fans of the Dan Dare serial on radio Luxembourg . This latter publication of 80 pages contained many illustrations of the various Solar system inhabitants which were encountered in the serial, together with depictions and descriptions of the various enemies that Dan and co came up against. The Jeff Hawke booklet is a much simpler affair of just eight pages and is really a “Space” version of the Air cadets‘ record of service book, the 3822. It contains an intro by Jeff himself, a Spaceway code, and a section where you can fill in your details and choose your crew status; pilot ,
navigator etc. Finally the
inside back cover has three little spaceship illustrations.
A link to the “Down the tubes “ website is on our link page. If you do not already know the site it is certainly worth a visit.
Skipper Prossit
