Twitter is like having penpals I think, sharing experiences, connecting long distance. It's also a news resource & a way of promoting one's opinions, hopes, business ideas etc. It can be a personal diary with others looking in, a window on the world of others ... 😁
It is regarded by its fans as one of the most important sci-fi comics ever published.
Written by Willie Patterson from Perth and created by Dundonian
Sydney Jordan, Jeff Hawke was published from 1955 to 1974 and even
predicted the day of the moon landings to within a fortnight – 10 years
before it happened.
Hawke regularly came face to face with creatures from other worlds.They were friends in teenage years after Jordan moved to Perth from
Dundee and both went to Miles Aeronautical Technical School in Reading.
Willie PattersonThe daily comic strip saw the Flash Gordon-like hero encounter extraordinary characters from other worlds.
Memorable storylines included Hawke being pursued from his moon base
to the National Portrait Gallery in London by the spirit of the Mona
Lisa; the human race being rescued from the ambitions of an alien estate
agent; and a take on man’s first steps into space where the competition
was beaten by an Englishman who landed on the moon in a Mini Cooper!
The classic sci-fi books have been donated to libraries in Tayside and Fife by Patterson’s daughter Chrys Muirhead.
Willie Patterson’s daughter Chrys Muirhead.“The Jeff Hawke science fiction stories are an important legacy for
my family and many others globally who have kept the tales alive by
reading and sharing them,” she said.
“I feel very proud to be my father’s oldest daughter and to have
lived long enough to appreciate what he did and what it cost him to
create these stories.
“I remember my dad writing Jeff Hawke scripts on his electric
typewriter in our flat in Perth in the 1960s, usually through the night,
so as not to disturb us.
“My father was a gentleman, principled, autocratic at times, yet not a
disciplinarian, who cared about others, and this shines through I think
in his writing of Jeff Hawke’s adventures which are described as a
‘benchmark in intelligent, adult-oriented storytelling’.”
The books.In 1954, Jordan decided to pitch an idea for a comic strip character named Orion to the Daily Express.
It was taken up but only after the character was renamed Jeff Hawke and given the position of a Royal Air Force Pilot.
Two years later, Patterson joined his childhood friend as the writer.
They made Jeff Hawke the first science fiction comic strip for adults.
Often in the plots there was a connection between extraterrestrial
entities, archaeological mysteries and even supernatural creatures.
In the strip H1760, published on November 21 1959, there is a stone
that commemorates the first human landing on the moon, noting that it
happened on August 4 1969.
Of course, Neil Armstrong was the first person to step onto the lunar
surface on July 21 1969 which was just two weeks before the comic
predicted.
It was also the year Patterson’s contract to write Jeff Hawke would
come to an end and Jordan took back responsibility for stories and
drawings.
Patterson never worked again or came back to Perth after his contract was terminated in 1969.
The last Jeff Hawke strip was published on April 18 1974.
Jordan tried to revamp the character in a similar strip called Lance McLane in the Daily Record from 1976 to 1988. Patterson died aged 57 in London in 1986.
The Patterson-Jordan period is considered the “true” Jeff Hawke by most fans. Jeff Hawke remains hugely popular in Italy and Scandinavian countries.
“Willie was a man who saw beyond the skies to the stars,” said Jordan in his eulogy following his friend’s death.
my Dad Willie Patterson c1963, a selfie taken in our home, Perth, Pomarium flats
----------------- An Email sent this morning:
"Dear Graeme
Thank
you for writing such a true representation of the story, in the comic
strip and told by me. ....
Your
article makes me want to go and read more of Jeff Hawke, the mention of
the National Portrait Gallery in London, the alien estate agent and the
Englishman on the moon in a Mini Cooper! ...
Well done for bringing the sci-fi stories more alive and to the Courier readership. Much appreciated.
Regards, Chrys"
-----------------
These Jeff Hawke 1986 and 1987 Titan Books editions sent to me by Sydney Jordan after my Dad's funeral, October 1986:
Inscription in Book Two:
from Jeff Hawke Book Two Counsel for the Defence, Titan Books Ltd, Pub 1987
-----------------
I donated copies of the 2008 republications of Jeff Hawke stories by Titan Books to both Fife and Dundee Libraries, the latter copies went into the Local History department, and I will be donating books also to Perth Library:
Some of the mental health initiatives I wanted to be involved in setting up in Fife and Scotland since 2008 when I organised Celebrating Recovery in Cupar, April, creating vol org Peer Support Fife and my own website Chrys Muirhead Associates in the January.
I organised this event voluntarily & many others subsequently
I'd made a full recovery after psychosis and psychiatric treatment 3 times, 1978, 1984 and 2002, so was really keen on helping others to do the same, by promoting peer support or mentoring, ways of navigating the psychiatric system and latterly safe houses for psychosis. But there wasn't the appetite for it and the agendas of others took priority. I'd been a "one man band" or "force of nature" (both descriptions given about me by MH managers) when running various events from 2008-12 then exposing locked seclusion room abuses, singlehandedly supporting my son, having got abandoned by MH services after raising complaints.
I didn't choose to be a campaigner but I couldn't let them abuse my son and get away with it. Although they did get away with it, up to a point, protected by the health board and their social work colleagues who ganged up against me. It's a thankless task being a whistleblower about human rights abuses in psychiatric settings. There's no profit in it or medals to be awarded. Best not to get bitter about the unfairness. I've got a life to live, other stories to tell, if time (and God) allows ...
