THE remembrances by older readers of the fictitious heroes they read about in their youth suggests there is stuff here for cultural historians to work on (Letters, May 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16 & 18).

The boys' papers that I read from 1940 to 1950 produced great war stories up to 1945, then a stream of memorable sports stories from the end of the war in Europe through the later 1940s.

During the war, Hitler and the Nazis were regularly thwarted by courageous schoolboys as well as fighting men. In Adventure in 1944, in The Boy from Berlin, Bill Wilson went to Germany as a spy and fooled the Fuhrer. In the Hotspur in 1940-41, Alf Coppin broke codes with ease and Billy the Penman was a handwriting marvel. The same paper had the intrepid pilot Captain Dan Blade and his comrades in Q Squadron and, from 1943, Black Flash Commando, a band of daring warriors striking enemy lines. This says something about the morale and resilience of Britain in that period.

Peace in Europe in 1945 brought Nick Smith, Cannonball Kidd, and Baldy Hogan in football, Rob Higson in cricket, Kid Miller in boxing, and Alf Tupper in athletics.

Another phase came in the later 1950s, then the 1960s and 1970s, when heroes, some old and some new, emerged in the fields of both wartime deeds and sporting exploits, continuing for another readership what had gone before. The RAF bomber pilot, Sergeant Matt Braddock, first appeared in the Rover in 1952. The advent of television in the 1950s meant that the old-style stories in text with one illustration were replaced by pictures with drawings and speech balloons. I personally disliked the change, because it diminished the joy of reading and the magic of the printed word. Nevertheless, the new form re-told the tales of the Wolf of Kabul, William Wilson, the wonder athlete, and Braddock, and entranced fresh generations. The publications Victor, Hornet, and Warlord, with all-picture stories, were an outcome of this development.

Smith of the Lower Third, an excellent public school story in the Wizard, began in 1947. It continued the tradition of Red Circle School, which ran continuously in the Hotspur from 1933 to 1958. There, I would say, is plenty of material indicating how times and circumstances change and how they are coped with.

Christopher Reekie, Edinburgh EH4.

YOUR Correspondent Hugh Steele (Letters, May 16) questions an earlier assertion of Eric Arbuckle, suggesting Flight Sergeant Matt Bradock might have flown an Avro Lancaster, not a Mosquito. "I might be wrong ... corrections accepted," he adds. Well, I have checked my yellowing pile of story papers.

In the summer of 1940 ... "Mine-laying. We're getting a Hampden for the job," says Braddock. "A good kite ... it will stand up to hard slogging." (Rover, March 8, 1958).

In 1941 he was flying a Mosquito on photo reconnaissance. "We watched them (Heinkel 113s) come round in a wide circle. Braddock put our nose down a bit and his hand moved on the throttles. Our two mighty Merlin engines gave a deep roar and I felt a push in the back as the Mosquito speeded up," recalls his navigator. (Rover, November 1, 1958)

The great Bomber Offensive. In 1942 the big raids were only just starting. "We've a tricky job tonight," said Braddock. "We're to plant our first Pink Pansy ... mark a target for a squadron of Halifaxes." Braddock's navigator, George Bourne, records, "We crossed towards the buildings. Our new Lancaster, black as night, was about to be refuelled." (Rover, October 17, 1953).

Carolyn Lincoln,

Edinburgh EH10.

I REJOICE at the recall and in-depth knowledge of Allan C Steele (Letters, May 18) and other contributors re boys’ comics of the 1940s and 50s featuring the marvellous exploits of boyhood heroes who made us the men we are today.

We lived the dream then and have no need now for the adult daydreaming escapism of James Thurber’s ineffectual Walter Mitty.

However, I do admit to some regret that there have been no similar reflections from the mysterious untouchables we knew then as lassies regarding their formative reading experiences; and the happy memories stirred by this correspondence are tempered by sadness for current youngsters deprived of nourishment for soul and psyche with their addiction to electronic gadgets and what I believe is termed software.

R Russell Smith, Kilbirnie.