Derek Birnage

Background

He was born in Wandsworth, South London, on 13 June 1913, the son of Frank Birnage, editor of the conservative evangelical newspaper the Sunday Conpanion, and was educated at Sutton Valence School in Kent.

Career

After leaving school he joined the comics department of Amalgamated Press under Regional Eves, initially working on Schooldays. When Audrey"s mother died a few years later, the shop was sold, and Birnage returned to Amalgamated Press. The result was "Roy of the Rovers", drawn by Joe Colquhoun, who later also wrote the strip under the pseudonym Stewart Colwyn.

After Colquhoun left in 1959, Birnage wrote the strip himself, using the pseudonym Frank Winsor, when not ghost-writing for the credited writer, Bobby Charlton.

Birnage left Tiger, and "Roy of the Rovers", in 1963, to edit comics annuals. He left comics in 1964 to edit his father"s old paper, the Sunday Companion, until it closed in 1970, before returning to IPC (as the publisher was now called after a series of mergers) to work for a new football comic, Score "n" Roar, under Sid Bicknell.

He also edited Smash! and Buster before he was made redundant in 1972.

Achievements

• After it folded he moved to The Champion as a sub-editor under Bernard Smith, also writing "Colwyn Dane", a detective strip, for the title. During the Second World War he did his military service in the Royal Signal Corps, before acting as editor of The Champion until Smith returned. In 1952 he became editor of The Champion while Smith launched a new title, Lion. In 1954 Birnage launched a new sports-themed comic, Tiger, and asked writer Frank S. Pepper to create a more realistic football strip than The Champion"s "Danny of the Dazzlers".