Johnny Hop

a police series from The Victor

See The Victor issues 178 - 185 (18th July 1964 to 5th Sept. 1964.)

Writer:- The Victor editorial team. Artist:- Yaroslav Horak.

Main cast:- Constable Bill Lennox; Wally Omes - Aborigine tracker.

Time period:- 1960's.

'Bill Lennox was the law in Taree Waters, in the heart of Australia. He was the policeman, the coroner and the registrar all in one - what the Australians call the "Johnny Hop". The only helper he had was Wally Omes, a full blooded aborigine, who was a first class tracker.' (From the introduction to the series).

Constable Lennox’s beat is the barren central outback of central Australia . But it is nonetheless a dangerous beat, with murderers, bank robbers and other criminals on the loose. Lennox’s vital weapon in his fight against crime is his Aborigine colleague Wally Omes, whose tracking abilities help Lennox to solve crimes and on a couple of occasions save his life. This two man police force are a deadly combination who face and overcome many difficulties.

It would appear that the definition of Johnny Hop as provided by The Victor script writers is fictional. I contacted the South Australian Police Historical Society, who kindly had the following to say on the term Johnny Hop.

Allan Peters the Society's librarian said, 'Most police officers stationed in regional areas were required to take on extraneous duties including such things as fireman, customs officer telegraphic operator, ambulance officer, Crown land ranger, inspector of noxious weeds, registrar of births deaths and marriages, to name but a few. However this had nothing to do with the cartoon character named being referred to as Johnny Hop. Johnny Hop, I imagine, was a contraction of the rhyming slang term, Johnny Hopper. Rhyming slang was used quite a lot during the 1940s & 50s and originating from London.'

My thanks to Mr. Peters and the Society for the information.

Artwork is by Australian artist Yaroslav Horak, who by this time had moved to work in England. This series was drawn before Horak became famous for drawing the James Bond 007 newspaper strips. For other information about the artist, please visit the Artist Identify page.

The following adventures of Bill Lennox and Wally Omes are from issues 180, 182 and 185.

Please note that one word which appears occasionally in this strip was used freely in the 1960's, but is not acceptable today.

(The background World map is from The Faber Atlas, edited by D.J. Sinclair, published in Oxford, G.E.O., 1956.-)