We spent the last few days travelling in our camper around National Trust properties with second hand book shops dropping off books. They are more than happy to receive ones that are actually more than two years old and not just fiction paperbacks unlike charity shops. It took two days and four visits before we could begin to move around  the camper without having to shift boxes every time. We eventually visited seven properties (and not one PAN spotted on a shelf to add to the ‘As seen in a NT property’  section) finishing up at Baddesley Clinton on what was advertised as the first day of their annual weeks book sale. They had been setting up the day before and had been happy to sell and had actually raised £1,200 on that one day while last year it was only £400. The total last year was well over £50,000 so who knows what it might be this year but at least £11 of it will be mine!

Having shown some of the E V Thompson titles with covers by Cecil Viewig I picked up  ‘Becky‘ but with a cover by Gwyneth Jones. This cost me all of 50p and I was even more pleased to find it was signed by the author.

I also picked up another version of the Mollie Hunter book ‘The Ghosts of Glencoe’ with an unattributed cover but again pleasantly surprised to find it signed by the author although this one cost me a whole £1.

I also found a reference to a Geoff Taylor cover on his website he did for a Mollie Hunter title that implied it might never have been used but I managed to find it had and although not Piccolo but Fontana Lions I’ve added it to both the Geoff Taylor and Mollie Hunter pages.

I also heard from Ray in Australia last week but I’m going to hold fire on that until next week where hopefully it will tie in with another couple of items.