Raymond Sheppard and Boy's Own Paper and Keith Horan

Boy's Own Paper May 1956, pp.26-27

Back in 2012, I showed the colour cover and inside illustration from Boy's Own Paper of May 1955. The story "The Red Fear" by Keith Horan was about how tigers and even elephants stand aside when packs of red dogs roam on the Deccan Plateau of southern India. 

Today I want to concentrate on the other three stories written by Keith Horan and illustrated by Sheppard. 

The April 1957 issue of Boy's Own Paper has "Terror of the Air"; May 1956 we have "The Masked Terror", January 1958 the story "Guardian of the Water-Gate" and in the issue dated June 1958 we sadly have not only Sheppard's last work for Boy's Own Paper but also a tribute to him in the story "The Monarch of Silver Pool".  

The first "The Masked Terror" (see above illustration) has some superb writing, engaging the reader with horror, whilst teaching subversively about nature:

Nearly two inches in length, it had a long, pointed body, ringed and armoured and ending in a sort of spike. lts thorax was also armoured and from it protruded six legs.  The back of its head consisted mostly of two black, staring globes of eyes, and the front, where its face and mouth should have been, was covered by a smooth, featureless mask split down the middle and reaching down to its breast. This mask, a combination of the Inquisition and the Klu-KIux-Klan, gave the monster a ghastly look of blank, mysterious horror.

Such terrors are Horan's description of the hunting skills and the insatiable hunger of the dragonfly larva!

Boy's Own Paper April 1957, p.26

The second is called "Terror of the air" and again is a tale of a dragonfly, but this time in the Himalayas. Again a voracious eater who eats things larger than itself!

Boy's Own Paper January 1958, p.18

"Guardian of the Water-gate" (January 1958)  is about a family of muskrat and the attack by a mink, who apparently cannot hold their breath as long as a muskrat. In the final battle depicted above, the muskrat father kills the attacking mink. Again the writing is tense, descriptive without being gruesome. 

Boy's Own Paper June 1958, p.18-19

Lastly we have "The Monarch of the Silver Pool" - who is a twenty inch long trout. We follow his adventures as a fingerling being caught by a fisherman who wisely puts the little trout back. we then read about a boy tickling the trout until a Bailiff comes along. Finally, grown up and as a 'monarch', an otter comes along with four webbed feet and a strong tail and an agility that finally leads to the Monarch's demise. 

On Monday the 21 April 1958, Raymond Sheppard passed away. Jack Cox, the Editor of Boy's Own Paper at the time, wrote the above tribute (with a few minor questionable facts).  Nevertheless it looks as if he must have known Sheppard, for this is quite affectionate and the only tribute I have so far seen in the magazine.

Getting back to Horan, he has two stories in Young Elizabethan that I know of ("Anek's Tapek "mentioned here) which are illustrated by Sheppard and after extensive searching in bibliographies and on the net, I have drawn a blank beyond this. There are various Horans in genealogical databases and the Times has a note of the engagement and wedding of "Pamela Horan only daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Horan, late 43rd Light Infantry (Oxford & Buckinghamshire) and Mrs Guy Rickard of Liphook, Hants."  BUT I don't know if this is him.

If anyone knows more about Horan (what this a pseudonym?) and any details of his life - and why he wrote no books under that name! - please do get in touch.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

     Horan, Keith (fl. 1940s-1950s)

        * Men, Meal, and Memories, (ar) Blackwood’s Magazine May 1951, as by “Won-Tolla”
        * Fun and Game, (ss) Blackwood’s Magazine September 1951, as by “Won-Tolla”
        * Pictures in the Fire, (ss) Blackwood’s Magazine November 1951, as by “Won-Tolla”
        * The Letter, (ss) Britannia and Eve December 1951
        * Escape, (ss) Argosy (UK) April 1952
        * Stand By—Maternity Case!, (ss) John Bull December 5 1953
        * Kubosko, (ss) The Boy’s Own Paper June 1954
        *[Resurgam, The World's News, 20 Nov 1954]?
        * The Red Fear, (ss) The Boy’s Own Paper May 1955
        * My Friend Bunda, (ss) The Boy’s Own Paper August 1955
        * Death in the grass, The Boy's Own Paper, September 1955
        * The Masked Terror, (ss) The Boy’s Own Paper May 1956
        * Terror of the Air, (ss) The Boy’s Own Paper April 1957
        * Anek's Tapek by Keith Horan Young Elizabethan June 1957
        * Forests of the night, Young Elizabethan, January 1958
        * Guardian of the water-gate, The Boy’s Own Paper, January 1958
        * The Monarch of Silver Pool, The Boy’s Own Paper, June 1958
        * White Fury, (ss) The Boy’s Own Paper February 1961

Thanks to the invaluable FictionMags Index and my own added research

Other than this, he remains a very big mystery which is a shame as I really enjoyed reading his short stories of nature "in tooth and claw"!