Our house was crammed with books as kids, fiction and factual, including Giles and Fred Basset collections, the Nigel Molesworth books – and two books by a little-known author, cartoonist and teacher, Jane Hope, bought by mother, a writer who, it seems, is near impossible to find much detail about.
Her first book, Don’t Do It, a guide to teaching was published in 1947, around the time my mother was at university, studying to be, of course, a teacher. It received a favourable review in the Daily Herald, from John Betjeman no less, in his “Her Pen Didn’t Squeak” column for Tuesday 16th December 1947.
He advised it “is recommended to those who would become schoolmistresses as well as those who are. The book is clearly the work of someone who has taught in a big day school and retained her humour. I like the lines she quotes: ” What have you done.” St. Peter asked. “To earn admission here?” “I’ve been teacher, sir.” she said. “For many and many a year.” The Pearly Gates swung open wide. St. Peter touched the bell. “Come in.” he said, “and choose your harp.” You’ve had your share of Hell.”
All this and Burnham too! followed quickly in 1948. The books only half remembered, the author’s name inexplicably forgotten, until recently I’d been unable to track down copies of these books, despite the rather unique title of the second.
Luckily, last week, an online search of secondhand book catalogues finally bore fruit, and I managed to grab a copy of All this and Burnham too!, which offers some insightful, tongue-in-cheek commentary on the state of the British education system of the time, and is an entertaining snapshot of life at the time for put upon teachers.
Re-reading the book, it’s clear the content would have resonated with my mother, the quoted Times Educational Supplement review of an earlier edition cautioning that “This is a thoroughly naughty book, to be taken gently but firmly out of the hands of any teacher, especially any young and pretty teacher, in which it may be found – and it will be found in a great many. The author’s illustrations are even funnier than the text. But… definitely a black market book. No respectable teacher should be seen reading it.”
I’ve now discovered that Jane went on to write and illustrate several more books, all relatively inexpensive to buy secondhand, spanning her further adventures as a teacher, the adventures of “Faith Florence Hope”, Student Nurse and Jane once more, as a young mother, before her final works see her head back into teaching in the early 1960s.
The books were clearly popular, some reprinted several times, in hardcover and some in paperback, and given Jane was very much one of the most high profile cartoonists of the time thanks to her success, I’m surprised there’s very little “out there” about her.
Although purportedly non-fiction, I think we can safely assume that some of her accounts are at least lightly fictionalised. Some are certainly of their time – I suspect any teachers reading this item will wince at her description of her chosen profession in one book as “child beater”…
In a biography from the Penguin edition of one of her books, Hope says she “was born into a Lancashire family of engineers and schoolteachers, and married into a Lancashire family of engineers and schoolteachers.”
She progressed to teaching and writing, and by the mid-1950s was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with her husband and two sons. If she was a contemporary of my mother’s when she authored her first works, she’d now be in her nineties, if living.
I’m not aware her work has had attention from comic archivists. Did she write further books, or did her style fall out of fashion, as a change of publishers might suggest with her final book, The Thin Chalk Line, published in 1962?
Perhaps her family are out there, and can supply some background. For now, I’ll note her early works helped drive my interest in cartooning and the comic form, so whoever you were, whatever you went on to do, Jane, thank you.
Further information welcomed.
THE KNOWN WORKS OF JANE HOPE
• Don’t Do It (1947)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
“A Complete Guide to Teaching”
• All this and Burnham too! (1948)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
“A critical study of the future and subjunctive of our educational system”
• One Term at Utopia (1950)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
• The Inspector Suggests (1951)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
“Or, How not to inhibit the child”
• Standing Room Only (1953)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
“Or, The Battle of the Bulge”. A comical look at over-crowding in the schools of the 1950’s. “You must know that all our schools are loaded well past the Plimsol Line.”
• Call Me Florence (1953)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
A guide to nursing, the first adventures of Faith Florence Hope, Student Nurse at “Torniquet Towers”
• Leave it to Florence (1954)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
A further guide to nursing, charting the career of Faith Florence Hope, Student Nurse at “Torniquet Towers”
• The Scholarship Stakes (1955)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
Also titled Scholarship at Stake in paperback editions from Penguin
• Happy Event (1957)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
The hilarious inside story of the first year of bringing up baby.
• Nothing But The Truth (1960)
Published by Frederick Muller | Abe Books | AmazonUK
Or, “A Tiny Book of Monsters”
• The Thin Chalk Line (1962)
Published by Evans Brothers | Abe Books | AmazonUK
Jane Hope comes up with an even funnier and more pungent picture of life in the understaffed State Schools of to-day. The Thin Chalk Line follows her two previous successes also published by Evans, Scholarship Stakes and Standing Room Only.
Syndicated reviews described this as “another hilariously funny book by this writer, who has included illustrations on every page. Jane Hope paints a picture of life in the under-staffed State Schools of to-day. She shows that no longer do these schools aim to teach the three R’s, but they also seems to be hives of sccial activity. Her portrait of teachers at work is wildly funny; never before have so few been asked to put into practice so numerous highhanded theories.”
With thanks to Rosemary Freeman
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Books, Classic British Comics, Comic Creator Spotlight, Features, Other Worlds