Musing's of a Gardener: November 2024

26 November 2024

List of Books where Bigglesworth (Biggles) is the main character, written by W.E. Johns

Introduction

I grew up in family the read all the time and as a young man, my father, brothers and I read any Biggles book we could lay our hand on - and eventually collecting quite a few (now in the hands of my youngest son). None are collector's 'items' but that not our purpose.

I started reading Biggles again while watching my grand-daughter at play - they are very easy books to read and be interrupted without much loss or train-of-thought. This table was extracted from a few websites to enable a list in the order in which WE Johns wrote them to be constructed, allowing them to be read in order of publishing. It would be more useful to have them in chronological order of activities of Biggles - perhaps some one has done this.

W.E. Johns' books whose main character is (various rank) Charles Bigglesworth (Biggles) list in order of publication.

Number	Title	Year of first	First edition publisher
1	The Camels are Coming	1932	J. Hamilton
2	The Cruise of the Condor	1933	J. Hamilton
3	Biggles Flies Again	1934	J. Hamilton
4	Biggles of the Camel Squadron	1934	J. Hamilton
5	Biggles Flies East	1935	Oxford University Press
6	Biggles Hits the Trail	1935	Oxford University Press
7	Biggles in France	1935	The Boys' Friend Library
8	Biggles Learns to Fly	1935	The Boys' Friend Library
9	The Black Peril	1935	J. Hamilton
10	Biggles & Co	1936	Oxford University Press
11	Biggles in Africa	1936	Oxford University Press
12	Biggles – Air Commodore	1937	Oxford University Press
13	Biggles Flies West	1937	Oxford University Press
14	Biggles Flies South	1938	Oxford University Press
15	Biggles Goes to War	1938	Oxford University Press
16	Biggles Flies North	1939	Oxford University Press
17	Biggles in Spain	1939	Oxford University Press
18	The Rescue Flight	1939	Oxford University Press
19	Biggles – Secret Agent	1940	Oxford University Press
20	Biggles in the Baltic	1940	Oxford University Press
21	Biggles in the South Seas	1940	Oxford University Press
22	Biggles Defies the Swastika	1941	Oxford University Press
23	Biggles Sees It Through	1941	Oxford University Press
24	Spitfire Parade	1941	Oxford University Press
25	Biggles in the Jungle	1942	Oxford University Press
26	Biggles Sweeps the Desert	1942	Oxford University Press
27	Biggles – Charter Pilot	1943	Oxford University Press
28	Biggles Fails to Return	1943	Hodder & Stoughton
29	Biggles in Borneo	1943	Oxford University Press
30	Biggles in the Orient	1945	Hodder & Stoughton
31	Biggles Delivers the Goods	1946	Hodder & Stoughton
32	Sergeant Bigglesworth CID	1947	Hodder & Stoughton
33	Biggles Hunts Big Game	1948	Hodder & Stoughton
34	Biggles' Second Case	1948	Hodder & Stoughton
35	Biggles Takes a Holiday	1948	Hodder & Stoughton
36	Biggles Breaks the Silence	1949	Hodder & Stoughton
37	Biggles – Air Detective	1950	Marks & Spencer
38	Biggles Gets His Men	1950	Hodder & Stoughton
39	Another Job for Biggles	1951	Hodder & Stoughton
40	Biggles Goes to School	1951	Hodder & Stoughton
41	Biggles Follows On	1952	Hodder & Stoughton
42	Biggles Takes the Case	1952	Hodder & Stoughton
43	Biggles Works It Out	1952	Hodder & Stoughton
44	Biggles and the Black Raider	1953	Hodder & Stoughton
45	Biggles in the Blue	1953	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
46	Biggles in the Gobi	1953	Hodder & Stoughton
47	Biggles of the Special Air Police	1953	Thames Publishing Co.
48	Biggles and the Pirate Treasure	1954	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
49	Biggles Cuts It Fine	1954	Hodder & Stoughton
50	Biggles Foreign Legionnaire	1954	Hodder & Stoughton
51	Biggles Pioneer Air Fighter	1954	Thames Publishing Co.
52	Biggles' Chinese Puzzle	1955	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
53	Biggles in Australia	1955	Hodder & Stoughton
54	Biggles of 266	1956	Thames Publishing Co.
55	Biggles Takes Charge	1956	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
56	No Rest for Biggles	1956	Hodder & Stoughton
57	Biggles Makes Ends Meet	1957	Hodder & Stoughton
58	Biggles of the Interpol	1957	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
59	Biggles on the Home Front	1957	Hodder & Stoughton
60	Biggles Buries a Hatchet	1958	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
61	Biggles on Mystery Island	1958	Hodder & Stoughton
62	Biggles Presses On	1958	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
63	Biggles at the World's End	1959	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
64	Biggles' Combined Operation	1959	Hodder & Stoughton
65	Biggles in Mexico	1959	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
66	Biggles and the Leopards of Zinn	1960	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
67	Biggles and the Poor Rich Boy	1960	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
68	Biggles Goes Home	1960	Hodder & Stoughton
69	Biggles and the Missing Millionaire	1961	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
70	Biggles Forms a Syndicate	1961	Hodder & Stoughton
71	Biggles Goes Alone	1962	Hodder & Stoughton
72	Biggles Sets a Trap	1962	Hodder & Stoughton
73	Orchids for Biggles	1962	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
74	Biggles and the Plane That Disappeared	1963	Hodder & Stoughton
75	Biggles Flies to Work	1963	Dean & Son
76	Biggles' Special Case	1963	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
77	Biggles Takes a Hand	1963	Hodder & Stoughton
78	Biggles Takes It Rough	1963	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
79	Biggles and the Black Mask	1964	Hodder & Stoughton
80	Biggles and the Lost Sovereigns	1964	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
81	Biggles Investigates	1964	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
82	Biggles and the Blue Moon	1965	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
83	Biggles and the Plot That Failed	1965	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
84	Biggles Looks Back	1965	Hodder & Stoughton
85	Biggles Scores a Bull	1965	Hodder & Stoughton
86	Biggles and the Gun Runners	1966	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
87	Biggles in the Terai	1966	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
88	Biggles and the Dark Intruder	1967	Knight Books, Leicester
89	Biggles and the Deep Blue Sea	1967	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
90	Biggles and the Penitent Thief	1967	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
91	Biggles Sorts It Out	1967	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
92	Biggles in the Underworld	1968	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
93	The Boy Biggles	1968	Dean & Son
94	Biggles and the Little Green God	1969	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
95	Biggles and the Noble Lord	1969	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
96	Biggles Sees Too Much	1970	Brockhampton Press, Leicester
97	Biggles Does Some Homework	1997	Norman Wright, Watford^[1]
98	Biggles Air Ace: The Uncollected Stories by WE John	1999	Norman Wright, Watford^[2]

For further information see the following websites

http://www.wejohns.com/
http://www.biggles.info/ A list of all stores about Biggles can be found here: 274 Stories

All accessed November 2024

Footnotes

[1] Incomplete work; it is said that WE Johns died in 1968 halfway through a sentence, after drafting 12 chapters. This author cannot verify these facts, other than the work was not completed nor published by WE Johns.

[2] Published after WE Johns’ death in 1968.

01 November 2024

Canadian Rockies and Alaska

We had been told by many that a trip to Canada & Alaska was worthwhile, considering it takes more than 14 hours flying time (about 24 hours in total) to get there (it took five flights to get home), and they were right. It was wonderful, my wife and I highly recommend the trip.

Trip and highlights

In summary we travelled to Victoria on Vancouver Island, with breakfast at the Butchart Gardens (it was absolutely wonderful in early spring with the bulbs all in flower), then on to Vancouver, Whistler, Banff, Lake Louise (which was white being iced over), Jasper, then the Rocky Mountaineer back to Vancouver via Kamloops. After a few days in Vancouver we took the inside passage – our first cruise – stopping at Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier National Park, College Fjord disembarking in Whittier. We then headed north – partly by coach, and partly by train to Fairbanks via Denali National Park – which was wonderful. We managed to see the top of Denali – a highlight even for our coach driver, although mostly it was under cloud. The wild life was extraordinary – we managed to see black bears with cubs in the wild, and recently woken grizzly bears on Grouse Mountain (where it snowed), bighorn sheep, elk and mountain goats, whales and orcas, along with a myriad of birds including eagles. The forests were wonderful as were the glaciers – even from afar (College Glaciers). The cruise was as we expected; the boat was not an amusement park, had few children and was generally quiet (too quiet for some), but the purpose was to allow passengers to see and experience the Inside Passage – and we certainly did!

Ski resorts look the same the world over – but the environment that surrounded places like Whistler and Banff was impressive. So was the tundra of Alaska – quite wilderness-like in one sense, but full of wildlife.

It rained in Vancouver (when does it not) only on our final day – we walked the city like Vancouverites and got wet! The gardens are beautiful including the Dr Sun Yat-Sen classical Chinese garden (well worth the walk and rain) as was Queen Elizabeth Park and Stanley Park.

We only had one moment of terrifying panic when I misplaced my passport – but the hotel manager & concierge, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and our tour operator were impressively professional, with the hotel manager going far beyond her duty, as did the tour guide. Many thanks to the honest pub (British) waiter who found and safely stored the passport – which was returned to me the next morning (after no sleep!).

Low Lights

Flights

We commenced our trip in Adelaide, with Air New Zealand totally failing us - they could not provide a plane for the scheduled flight to Auckland (advising us literally as we pulled up at the airport). Flying on a week-day was very helpful allowing our travel agent to negotiate flights with Air New Zealand and eventually we were booked onto two Qantas flights. The international flight was so full I had to sit 10 seats behind my wife, who unfortunately was allocated the most disgusting seat on the plane (44C) – the toilet (lavatory) door swung open to level with her seat – the stench was awful and the location made more so by the all-night pounding of people’s hands on the top of her seat as they negotiated the toilet door. It allows Qantas to fit an extra row of seats and thus more bonuses for the chief executive! Qantas, as the Media in Australia has pointed out for some time now, does not care one iota for its passengers. We also lost money on the premium economy seats we paid for the outbound trip – we could only get economy seats on Qantas sold at a premium price. (See Qantas sold seats that did not exist: https://www.inqld.com.au/business/2023/08/31/into-thin-air-qantas-hit-with-legal-case-after-selling-seats-on-ghost-flights).

Trains

The comparison between the Rocky Mountaineer train experience (2 day train trip) and the USA (Alaskan) McKinley Explorer train was like chalk and cheese. The Canadian staff all help each other, nothing was too much, and if one did not know or was busy, found someone else to help. The Americans worked in total isolation from each other – the drinks person could not clear food trays away, and the food server could not get water for someone. It was as if they were at war with each other – Democrat vs Republican!

Our learnings

Journey and Friends

We used the Journi app to allow our children and friends to keep up with us – it was useful and easy to use. We posted some photographs each day and a short synopsis of the day. It does require downloading the app & installing, then logging in, which an elderly friend had difficulty doing. She was helped out by another friend and managed to catchup. The down-side, one cannot download everything we wrote without paying for a ‘book’ of the material. (We also kept a paper diary – no cost involved in downloading!).

Alaska

Alaska is not all mountains covered in snow – there are vast rivers, flat-lands and huge forests. Having the sun set after midnight was an interesting experience. It is well worth the travel to visit (also the only place we all had to remove our shoes to pass through airport security!)

Tour guide

Having an excellent communicator, organizer, and wonderful person as your guide makes the tour much enjoyable. We had certainly one of the best we have ever had – knowledgeable, likeable, fun to be with, but serious when required – she knew the tour inside and out providing excellent guidance including historical and local information. Having excellent people skills is a must for a tour guide: our guide was able to manage the 39-40 Australians including 2 from NZ with panache, even when we got a bit raucous. (We actually all got along, although from very different walks of life).

Scheduling

Fly out during a week-day, else plan to arrive a day early to allow for delays. It was so helpful having the travel agent deal with Air New Zealand’s incapability of getting us to Canada as contracted; we were able to contact her because it was within work hours on a Wednesday.

Shoulder period travel

It was cheaper!

Travelling early in the season had some pros and cons. The season was fresh, the flowers absolutely wonderful, and the weather warmer than we thought (we took too many ‘warm’ clothes) – we had snow once. However, in some cases the hotels and eateries were chaotic – in one the staff were untrained and unmanaged (the so called managed was simply out of his depth) and had only be one site for a week. In the mountains, the staff are itinerant (often Australian, British or European) – with various levels of skill.

Money and e-business

We used far less cash than expected – but it was interesting to see that in some areas the northern Americas are not as tech savvy as one would think. The Canadians could not contemplate an electronic driver’s licence as ID. Tap-and-go with a device was hit and miss, however, travel (debit) cards worked in most places. Some of Alaska preferred cash.