Perhaps that is why these old comics continue to fascinate collectors.
We are not simply looking at Dennis, Minnie, Beryl, Roger, Winker or the Bash Street Kids.
We are looking through a small window into another Britain.
It was a world of penny chews, school caps, Christmas annuals, ink-stained newsprint, terrifying headmasters, long summer holidays and children who somehow survived explosions, crashes and catastrophes every seven days before returning completely unharmed for the following week’s adventure.
And somewhere, usually in the final panel, stood an exasperated parent or teacher.
The joke was understood instantly.
No explanation was required.
Times changed, schools changed, families changed—and eventually the comics changed with them.
But open one of those battered old annuals today and that vanished comic-book Britain is still there, waiting between the pages.
