STEADFAST, RALPH – My childhood was punctuated by the sort of metabolic collapses suffered by most clairvoyant children. The human immune system can only withstand so much and psychics are often as sensitive to germs as they are impressions. When I was twelve I embarked upon a regime of vitamins and stretching exercises that bolstered my constitution to the extent that, until I succumbed to the virus that virtually stripped me of my powers, I suffered nothing more than the occasional cold. Throughout my early childhood, though, my name was a by-word for sickliness. Between the ages of seven and ten, I spent successive Christmases in bed, listening to raucous laughter emanating from downstairs. The confinement might have been intolerable had my Grandfather Sneddon not introduced me to Ralph Steadfast, the hero of a series of stories he had written for publication in the boys' comics still popular at the time of my own childhood, but now sadly obsolete. The Ralph Steadfast stories, first illustrated by my grandfather's friend, Malcolm Crossley, and latterly my Aunt Alice, made such a profound impression on me that these Christmases spent in his company were possibly the happiest of my life.
Parapalegic from birth, Ralph, despite being confined to a wicker bath-chair, pitted his wits against sundry enemies of humanity. Assisted by slow-witted but able bodied accomplices, Timmy Rogers and Rosco Mulhearn, Ralph thwarted the machinations of Nazis, voodoo priests and cannibals, none of whom reckoned on his powers of persistence. At various times, Ralph was lowered into wells, attacked by wild dogs, fired from a cannon and, on one terrible occasion, cooked alive by the Kahuna magician Obu. Malcolm Crossley's illustrations, tragically destroyed in the course of one of Spencer's drunken rampages, perfectly captured the indefatigability with which Ralph confronted these ordeals. A glower of indignation from the simmering pot in which he was confined was all that was required to alert both the reader and Obu to the imminent triumph of good over evil, triumph assured on that occasion by the timely arrival of Rosco with a detachment of marines. It was this story, ‘Diving For Peril', incidentally, that prompted the Victor comic to express an interest in adopting Ralph Steadfast as a regular character, an offer withdrawn after a change of editor. I still have the letter rescinding the original agreement. The Steadfast stories, it asserts, are “too peculiar and sadistic for a modern readership.” Since this readership subsequently deserted the comic in droves, it would appear that the editor miscalculated. One can only imagine what sort of generation might have evolved had Steadfast been available as a role model.
Neither Christine nor Spencer shared my enthusiasm for the Ralph Steadfast stories. Spencer's loathing was obviously connected to his own justifiable feelings of inadequacy. Christine, however, claimed that the stories gave her nightmares and, several years ago, was so enraged by my reading them to Muriel that I was banned from the house until promising never to repeat the ‘offence'. I can't help but think that Steadfast's influence might have discouraged Muriel from her current life of loitering about churchyards with assorted undesirables!
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