First encounters with tales of the Old West
HOW WE WERE ROUNDED UP

Keith Chapman

Author Mike Linaker (aka Neil Hunter and Richard Wyler) asked members of the BHW herd to tell how they were rounded up to become readers and buyers of westerns. He wrote:

My collection of original Gold Medal Books has risen to about 20. Some of them go back to the fifties and sixties, a great time for westerns and I've had some relaxing times re-reading books I first read when they first came out. My latest was Tough Hombre by Dudley Dean, the first western I ever bought and which was responsible for hooking me on to westerns. I bought it on impulse because I liked the cover (Frank McCarthy).

I'd had no luck getting hold of a copy until great friend David Whitehead found one on and sent it to me as a gift. I read it in one sitting and it took me back to those Gold Medal days. To Dave, a grateful thanks — to you guys, a question: Is there any western book that might have been an influence in bringing you into the corral? (I didn't say fold because that's to do with S-H-E-E-P and we Westerners don't hold no truck with them woolly varmints).

Seal of approval.

The fastest on the draw was Keith Chapman (aka Chap O'Keefe) who replied:

I envy you that collection of Gold Medals. I have a mere two, though I suspect I have a fair few reprints that made first appearances as Gold Medals — books by Louis L'Amour, Giles Lutz, T. V. Olsen, Lewis B. Patten, maybe even an Elmore Leonard.

For the life of me, I just cannot remember the first western I ever bought. It could have been an eightpenny Western Library book by John Hunter, or it might have been a two-shilling Ward Lock Target western paperback on a day I was 'rich' in pocket money. I recall borrowing a Frank C. Robertson from the library on my father's ticket, and not finishing it, though in later years I've enjoyed the author's books.

Call of the "club".

I've forgotten the title of the half-read book, but it was published in Collins' Wild West Club series and had their distinctive graphic across the title and facing page, and yellow binding. In those days the public library made no effort to preserve the pictorial paper wrappers or, as they were called, dust jackets.

At the time, I was more interested in crime thrillers. Thus I would have probably picked up the Hunter because I'd enjoyed his Sexton Blake Library detective novels. And I was using my dad's library ticket because the Leslie Charteris Saint books, the Bulldog Drummonds, the Edgar Wallaces and the like, were all in the adult section of the library and I was around nine years old.

Gillian F. Taylor's reminiscences sprang from television.

I remember watching programmes like Bonanza and Alias Smith and Jones when I was a child, and my favourite toys were the Lone Ranger series by Marx that came out in the mid-seventies. The first western novel I ever read, so far as I remember, was White Stallion, Red Mare by J. T. Edson. I got it from the bookstall on Norwich market and picked it up because I thought it was a pony story.

Toybox treasure.

I realized my mistake pretty quickly, but thought it might be a western story about horses, so I bought it anyway. The white stallion and red mare turned out to be the Ysabel Kid and Calamity Jane, but I liked it and started reading more J. T. Edsons.

I still collect pony books, and horses continue to feature in my westerns. The stallion in my BHW Navajo Rock was based on my 29-year-old toy horse from that Lone Ranger series!

A second writer pulled in by J. T. Edson was Ian Parnham (I. J. Parnham).

I'd watched western movies and series for as long as I can remember, but hadn't read western books. But one day I was ill and off school and was so bored I listened to local radio. J. T. Edson was the programme's guest for the morning (he might have been promoting his 100th western, imaginatively titled J. T.'s 100th). The fact that he lived near me and had written 100 books, and was entertaining, inspired me to seek out his novels. I picked up an armful for 10p a go at a secondhand bookstore. Can't remember the title of the first. It might have been number 71, whatever that was. I remember that they had numbers on them, which also helped the collecting fever take hold.

Westerns for David Whitehead (aka Ben Bridges and Glenn Lockwood) were a family affair.

It wasn't a book that got me hooked on the West, it was my dad. When I was very young, he worked as a security man for a large chemical company, and on those long, lonely nightshifts, he used to hand-copy pictures from old Buffalo Bill Annuals for me to colour in. Then, during the day, he used to make up western stories which he then dictated into our old reel-to-reel tape recorder, adding sound effects as he went. You can imagine the sort of thing I mean. Wiggle your fingers in a bowl of water and it sounds like outlaws fording a shallow stream. Burst a few balloons and you'd swear it was rifle-fire.

Buffalo Bill for colour.

Anyway, I'd listen to these yarns when I came home from school, and as I grew older he would take me to see all the then-new western movies as they came out. So I was exposed to the Old West from a very young age, and when I finally decided that I wanted to write, westerns seemed to be the obvious choice. Sadly, Dad died in 1977, and never got the chance to see any of my stories in print, but in this case at least, it was a person, and not a particular book, that was responsible for kick-starting my interest.

Reader and Pulp Rack editor Duane Spurlock's first western reading was a library copy of Zane Grey's Lone Star Ranger.

I was in grade school, probably fifth or sixth grade. It didn't turn me on to westerns. I was used to TV westerns, with lots of shooting and horse chasing and action, and Grey's novel was too slow-paced for me. But my dad had recommended Grey to me, and the primary character's last name was Duane, so I managed to trudge throught it.

Just a year or so ago, I learned that Grey's editors at publishers Harper had disliked all the violence in the book, and had patched half of it together with half of another book, Last of the Duanes. So I read the original author's version that Five Star published, and was much more pleased with the book. Being older and a bit more experienced and discerning improved the reading experience as well.

But after that initial exposure to Grey, I didn't pick up another western until I was a sophomore or junior in high school. I read a few Louis L'Amours. There was a sameness, or predictability or something, about them after the first couple that made me put aside westerns again. At the time, I was much more interested in the Shadow and Doc Savage and Edgar Rice Burroughs, anyway.

Just about six years ago, I started reading westerns with real interest, after reading Jon Tuska's article about Les Savage, Jr. in Doug Ellis's fanzine, Pulp Vault. At the time, my wife and I were on vacation in St. Augustine, Florida. During that trip I noticed an old paperback edition of a Savage novel at a used bookstore, so I bought it and read it on the beach. I was hooked.

Book collector and reviewer Steve Myall reported:

My first western was a book similar in [manufacturing] design to a BHW and published by the Children's Press. It was The Rimfire Riders by John Robb. I'd soon added another two from the same series about a scout called Catsfoot. These were Gun Town Marshal and Cry Apaches. All three are still stored away around here somewhere and started my obsession with reading and collecting western series.

Author James Reasoner recalled a bountiful season's reading pleasures. The first western novel I read had to be either Single Jack by Max Brand or Hopalong Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford. I read both of them the same summer, but I don't remember which came first. That was also the summer I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert A. Heinlein, Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming. I was eleven.

ERB between westerns.

Howard Hopkins (aka Lance Howard) was so fascinated by Gillian's toys, he forgot to mention his reading.

Were these the poseable action figures with articulated Silver and Scout? I had those! Another collectible set came out a few years back much in the same vein. Of course, I had to buy it. They stand on the shelf in front of my BHW display.

No, I never did grow up!