REMEMBER WHEN We read the Silver Jacket

BETWEEN the end of the Korean War and the start of the Vietnam War we saw the brief but meteoric, appearance of Australia’s magazine for boys The Silver Jacket.

Its office was in Castlereagh St, Sydney, and it was sold at newsagents across Australia and New Zealand. Each issue included fiction, history and an Australian poem, by the likes of Henry Lawson. It also had a build-ityourself activity (one was a crystal radio), jokes, comics and a trading post.

The magazine had a silver- edged cover or jacket and the name was derived from the glossy dust jacket that was a standard accessory on any hardcover book. It ran for 38 issues, coming out monthly and then fortnightly. Each issue cost a shilling (10 cents in decimal). It had no photos, but was illustrated with numerous drawings, black and white inside and colour on the cover.

The first issue featured fictional British airman Biggles in his flight jacket and with his service revolver on the cover. The issue is dated October 1953. Military and patriotic themes were staples of the publication.

Along with the start of a serialised Biggles adventure with the “Special Air Police” there was a story of Robert

Baden-powell, a Boer War hero who founded the boy scouts.

A science section in the first issue looks forward to a time of space exploration with an article titled “A man made satellite is a scientific possibility and we may see in our lifetime”. That prediction was fulfilled within a few decades with the International Space Station in 1998.

Not so accurate was “Frogmen of the Future” in December 1953, which predicted navies would have hundreds of miniature submarines, with a crew of four, who could plant “atomic” mines on enemy ships.

In each issue there were two pages called “The Gag Bag”. Schoolboytype jokes like this one from the January 1954 edition, which reveals that the currency is pre-decimal:

“Dad, I ran all the way home behind a tram today and saved threepence”.

“Stupid boy! Why didn’t you run home behind a taxi and save five shillings?”.