My Favourite Fictional Character - Alf Tupper

Growing up in the North East of England in an era long before the internet and multiple TV channels (or even colour TV channels for that matter…) outdoor ‘entertainment’ in my youth consisted of impromptu cricket and football games (depending on the season…) in the street with anyone or everyone who was happy to join in. When it got too dark to stay outside and homework was done for the evening, my focus turned to reading about my fictional heroes in the popular boys comics of the day. The promise of a conclusion to a cliff-hanging story in ‘The Rover’ or ‘The Victor’ often had me waiting in great anticipation for my weekly subscription to plop through the letterbox and nestle briefly on the carpet, before it was whisked away and devoured immediately or saved for a special moment later in the day.

‘The Rover’ in particular offered sporting heroes a-plenty including the seemingly ageless ‘Roy of the Rovers’ and the magical ‘Billy’s Boots’ with schoolboy footballing superstar Billy also benefitting from the same Peter Pan-like qualities as Roy, enabling them both to stand still in time, whilst my own childhood was disappearing in a blaze seventies glam rock and bell-bottomed trousers.

Of all the fictional characters I came to avidly follow, the legendary Alf Tupper was probably the one that proved to be the biggest inspiration to me both then and later in life as I tried to emulate his feats immortalised in his weekly adventures as the ‘Tough of the Track’. Alf’s appeal lay in his never-say-die persona which saw him as the eternal underdog, often at his athletic-best the day after a late night shift as a welder, lifting heavy objects and getting little sleep. Regarded as a 'guttersnipe' by the ‘posh’ blokes administering athletics meetings and often the victim of skulduggery by jealous and ‘stuck-up’ rich boys from the local university, Alf nevertheless went on to win all his races and even break world records, before inevitably uttering his famous catchphrase “I ran ‘em all!”

The races may have been different each week but there was a pleasing familiarity to the context of each storyline. Alf prospered on of a diet which appeared to consist solely of fish and chips wrapped in newspaper and arrived at all his races in the nick of time - usually because he could not stop himself from rescuing people in distress during his journey, performing selfless acts of kindness that stood as a wonderful model to his readers.

Alf Tupper was 18 years of age when he first appeared in Rover in 1949 and appeared for the last time in the early 1990’s whilst he was training for the Barcelona Olympics at the age of 60. He was a favourite fictional character to many and a life-long motivation for some. I’ll leave the reader to judge where I stand on this one!