As promised here is PART 4 of my collection of PAN crossword books from 1972 to 1983. There are not quite as many covers missing as there were thanks to Ian who has supplied a few scans but if anyone has any of the others to add to the page please get in touch. There are also a few with two editions having different designs so even more to watch for plus a couple of colour variants but that might just be fading. There will be a PART 5 next week with a random selection of crossword related titles.
It was really nice to meet up again last week with artist Keith Scaife at his mother’s house in Leek. Thank you to both for the warm welcome and the cups of coffee. On my first visit I acquired the artwork for ‘The Iron Tiger’ by Jack Higgins and this time it was to pick up a Christmas present to myself, the other six Higgin’s covers Keith painted. I was annoyed as I had forgotten to take the books for Keith to sign but when, on returning, I got them off the shelf I found he had from last time we met, must be old age! Now to try and sort out frames, as always a dilemma. Keith started out as a model maker and has gone back to that. He is currently working on a commission for a collector in Italy and this time it’s for exact replicas of the models from the TV series ‘UFO’, of which most of the originals have been lost over the years. After this he will move onto ‘Space 1999’ Below are ‘UFO’ Dinky models from around the mid 1970s of which I have the first two but not Ed Straker’s car.
Last week I mentioned Bruce Edward’s book on Alan Cracknell. Now I have had a more in depth look it does show how good an artist he was over a very wide range of media. Having said that I do have one disappointment in that it mentions Enid Blyton covers bit doesn’t feature any. If I had know I could have offered my two PAN Piccolo titles for inclusion.
