The theme of mountaineering and skiing appeared in many weekly magazines all over the world. I suspect Lilliput picked the stories up as a result of the renewed interest due to the summit of Mount Everest finally being reached on 29 May 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. But not all stories need such a dramatic backdrop to inspire fiction and inspire superb drawings by Raymond Sheppard. I've selected the ones which relate stories of climbing in some form or other.
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| Lilliput June-July 1952 p.67 |
Lilliput June - July 1952 issue has a story by A. Crossland called "Too much rope". It concerns a man called Wessex and another, Runnymede, who he is guiding up the Gable in the Lake District. Sheppard shows a man in a beret stretching across a cliff face and trying to loop a rope through 'the needle'. You can read a bit about these climbs here. A second smaller illustrations shows the two men triumphantly sitting enjoying a sandwich.
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| Lilliput June-July 1952 p.69 |
I couldn't find anything about the author and his three pages of text do not lead me to think he would be employed again as I felt they didn't portray what should have been an exciting adventure, but maybe this is a nom-de-plume!
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| Lilliput April-May 1953 p.61 |
The second article "Avalanche" appeared in the April-May 1953 issue of Lilliput. It was written by Gibson Cowan, who we have met before on this blog (with a hyphen!) and who we shall meet again as he was quite prolific in Lilliput. This tale of a skier with two Germans relates in first person the journey which leads to a fall. We are fortunate in having access to the original art (thanks to Christine Sheppard), in which we can see registration marks applied to aid photographing the original for publication.
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"Avalanche" original art
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One reviewer on a climbing website called "Slieve Beg Mountain" (or Sliabh Beag in Irish, meaning 'little mountain') "a little mountain with a big attitude". The mountain in question is in the Mourne Mountains of County Down, Northern Ireland. Its height is 595.9 metres as is the subject of the third article I want to show you.
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Lilliput May-June 1953 p.40
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"Slieve Beg Buttress" by Frank Ritchie tells how two climbers (Ted Stewart and Billy Morrison) master the mountain - one experienced; the other learning. Over six pages of text (and accompanied by Sheppard's illustrations), we certainly get a sense of the tension and muscle ache and depression from slipping and having to carry on. A real nail-biter of a tale which ends in triumph. It looks as if Ritchie, the author, didn't write anything else for Lilliput and indeed I can't find any information on him beyond this tale.
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| Lilliput May-June 1953 p.43 |
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| Lilliput May-June 1953 p.44 |
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| Lilliput May-June 1953 p.45 |
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| Lilliput May-June 1953 p.46 |
The last story I want to share today is about "The Swaledale Ram".
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Lilliput June 1955, pp40-41
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Dudley Hoys is the author of this tale from Lilliput June 1955 and I recently mentioned his story in John Bull which was also illustrated by Sheppard. The dramatic opening shot of a man on top of a cliff watching as another man on a rope falling, begins the tale of two farmers who start as feuding neighbours but soon help each other rescue not only the ram on the ledge!
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"The Swaledale Ram" original art - cropped
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The two other images Raymond Sheppard drew appeared on pages 41 (see above image) and 42 and show the ram on the ledge and the final struggle to get the ram over the top of the rockface.
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The Swaledale ram on the ledge! Original art
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| Lilliput June 1955, pp42 |
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The final tug - original art
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Lastly we also have, thanks to Christine, a study her father did which I think is of the farmer dropping off the cliff face above, although there are slight variations - the hand of the right open / closed.
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Study for "The Swaledale Ram"?
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Part Two to follow, including K2, and the Matterhorn.
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