Following on from Golden PAN awards last week the first winner was Paul Brickhill whose statue was given posthumously in 1964 for “The Dam Busters” This title reached a million sales in 1956 and PAN announced the fact by including a strapline across the bottom of editions from then shown HERE.

They also produced a special hardback edition which I was told was to coincide with the million sales and film premiere. I was also told it was limited to 100 copies and just for PAN employees. I first hear about this from a fellow PAN Fan, Derek Steer, followed up by a query from Garry Scarr in Canada. This was a long time ago and I’ve looked for a copy on and off for many years but without success.

Talking to Gordon Young he mentioned giving the flag of the ‘Laloun’ to the PAN archives but also his special hardback edition of “The Dam Busters” This made me look again and as luck would have it there was a copy on eBay for ‘Buy it Now’ or “Make an Offer” I didn’t hesitate and bought it straight away for £10 including postage. When it arrived I looked at the first page and it was given to a John Burt. On looking back at old emails Garry had said his was to an Ann Orford while Derek said there was no name in his. I’m presuming Gordon’s copy was his own, I need to check when he comes back from the holiday he needed to recover from all the excitement.

I talked to Trevor, son of John Burt, who was selling the book and he said his father never worked for PAN but for W H Smith and later became Advertising Director at “The Sunday Times” The other anomaly is that the film premiere was actually in 1955 but the special edition was not published until 18 months later.

Talking of Gordon Young, I’m not really jealous that he gets his name on the front page of every one of the 20 PAN 70th Anniversary titles but ……..!

Due to being away for part of last week and the other part being taken up fighting the rain coming into the garage since the builders took the old roof off I’ve not managed to add all the other editions of “The Dam Busters” that I wanted to do. Hopefully next week.