Three Points of the Compass has written before of the informative pieces that used to be included in the Eagle Annuals, primarily aimed at British children. The three-page article reproduced here is from the 1962 annual. The author suggests that armed with pencil, india rubber, ruler and graph paper, budding cartographers map the district surrounding their home.

“I’m afraid we did a bit of trespassing to get the information we needed”

Edward Osmond was already a noteworthy writer and illustrator. He was responsible for the award winning ‘A Valley Grows Up‘, published in 1953. His suggested activity is all innocent instruction but I think it extremely doubtful that any youngster is going to be attempting similar today. A shame, as it promotes compass skills, maths, accurate observation and artistic illustration with pencil, ink, crayons and watercolours. But at least the blacksmith’s forge is now safe from ambitious wandering youths.