Wishing you all the best for 2025 and to many more blogs.
I’ve mentioned the BOAC Library before but HERE are a some more images. BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. In 1949 it absorbed British European Airways (BEA) and British South American Airways (BSAA) although BEA continued to operate British domestic and European routes. In 1971 BOAC and BEA merged forming today’s British Airways. Both BOAC and BEA had on board libraries with a variety of books from different publishers to loan and readers were invited to keep them if they hadn’t finished it by the end of the flight. I also like the one from Singapore Airlines Library, just what you want to read at 36,000 feet!
There were a couple of PANs on eBay recently that I was definitely interested in but went above my maximum. They were ‘The Dam Busters’ which went for £78.99 and ‘Enemy Coast Ahead’ which went for £52. What made them interesting was the number of POW signatures they claimed to have, one with 19 and the other 17. It would have been fascinating to research the ones that could be read,
Wishing all fellow PAN Fans a very Happy Christmas and successful book hunting in 2025.
A little while ago I was lucky enough to get the original artwork for ten Corgi covers by John Albert Richards (09/01/1915 to 01/07/1964). I justified buying them by saying they were a Christmas present to myself. I thought that a couple had also been used on Bantam titles but thanks to Rog Peyton who pointed out that the Corgi covers by Richards were nearly exact copies of the Bantams. To see the covers click HERE
I couldn’t find any Christmas examples of same number, different cover so it will be PAN number 66 ‘The Saint in New York’this week. Two of the covers are variants by John Pollack and two are variants by artist unknown. The changes over the four years seems to be mainly due to match house styles.
It’s hard to believe it was 25 years ago today I started the website www.tikit.net just as a bit of fun scanning in PAN book covers when the normal resolution was 640 x 480 and I went for 800 x 600, cutting edge stuff. It was the time when you seem to pay for every byte on a web server so images and text were kept to a minimum but since then things have certainly changed. I’m not saying it’s cheap but you get a lot more for your money. I can’t remember when the blog started or even what the first was called but it was followed by Blogger and then, as now, WordPress. I looked on the Internet Archive and the earliest capture was from 18th August 2002 and doesn’t look too dissimilar from now. One day it may get a makeover but I’ve been saying that for a long time, if it sort of works then don’t try to fix it.
This week we have five editions with the same number but with three different covers, namely Pan 42 ‘The Ringer’ by Edgar Wallace. It has been filmed several times including a version with Herbert Lom from 1952. It had a sequel, ‘Again the Ringer’ also published bp PAN as G567 and X441.
PAN Macmillan and Read for Good are giving away one thousand copies of ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ plus other bits and pieces to thirty one children’s ward’s around the country for those in hospital over Christmas. The staff at PAN Macmillan gift wrapped by hand copies of the 20th anniversary edition of the book and also included are festive activity packs and free access to The Gruffalo’s Child audio book and animated film, plus welcoming Gruffalo window stickers to help brighten up the hospital wards. Staff in each hospital will also receive a Christmas card thanking them for everything they do, written by illustrator Axel Scheffler and complete with a hand drawn festive Mouse or Gruffalo!
This weeks trio with the same number is different from last weeks in that it’s the later two that have the same artwork. This time it’s PAN 103 ‘The Avenging Saint’by Leslie Charteris with the 1949 edition printed in France and having artwork by Stein while the 1951 is printed in the UK with artwork by John Pollack as does the 1952 edition but goes back to being printed in France.
I’ve started to read‘Say I’m Sorry to Mother’by Carol Dix with a cover by Jennifer Eachus. Although Dix wrote sixteen novels PAN appears to have only published this one which I picked up in a charity shop,. Since looking for other copies online I’m surprised at the prices being asked. Although the story revolves around four girls some of the stories resonate with me. Going to St Ives was something we did in the late 60s when we could drive and had acquired a Standard Vanguard with overdrive. Before then it was hitching around Ireland. When I was fifteen, and the start of the summer holidays, me and my mate Tavish walked to the end of the road and started hitching. After six weeks we had managed to go all around Ireland living on a large bag of oats, Cadbury’s chocolate, Major cigarettes and Guinness. We smoked ‘grass’ which could have actually been grass for all the affect we felt. We ran a hostel for a week when the warden dropped down dead in the pub .We had one change of clothes each and it was a good job those that picked us up, often a couple of friendly priests(!), couldn’t smell us before we got in the car. We had a tent or slept under the stars, in bus shelters or on beaches or if we wanted a bit of luxury, a youth hostel. We must have smelt a bit off as the daughter of one of the hostel wardens made us spend the day on the beach in our trunks while she washed and dried our clothes. We repeated this for the next two years but it was never quite the same again.
As I have mentioned before my other daily distraction, apart from PAN books, is helping to keep our local disused railway as a community asset, a greenway for all. It is not surfaced and is fine in the summer but in the winter it is something else. Since 2000 there have been promises of upgrading the surface to a proper walking/cycling route and making it part of NCN5. Well at last it is happening as part of a multi million pound scheme with, hopefully, the first of the three stages completed by March. We are also working on the Lichfield three mile section so, in the not too distant future, there will be a safe off road route between Walsall and Lichfield. The reason I mention this is that there are currently a lot of meetings happening so books are taking a back seat but hopefully not for too long. In the photo are representatives of the construction company, National Highways, SUSTRANS, the local council and me. Note the brand new spades just for the occasion!
PAN 172 ‘You Can’t Keep the Change’by Peter Cheyney had three editions with this number, two with a cover by John Pollack and one with a cover by Sax (Rudolph Michael Sachs) It’s a bit odd in that the 1951 and the second reprint from 1952 were printed by Hazell Watson and Viney Ltd. while the 1952 edition was printed in France by Le Livre Universal, Paris.
While wrapping up ‘Rhymes With Berti’ by Martin Baker as a Christmas present for our grandson I glanced at a few pages and saw an illustration that looked familiar. It was a cat that first appeared on Martin’s painting of the cover of ‘Cat Amongst The Pigeons’ by Agatha Christie and published by Fontana.
I was disappointed in that I wasn’t able to visit ‘The Paperback and Pulp Fair’ held on the 24th November but as usual Jules Burt has produced yet another of his excellent videos running at just over an hour with very comprehensive cover of this and the ephemera fair next door. I’ve scrutinised it very careful but have not spotted that one elusive title I’m after namely X705 ‘Junior Crosswords Book 3’ by Robin Burgess
I’ve been watching this on eBay for a while and I’m not surprised it hasn’t sold especially when you can see the price inside someone was asking for it! It was one of the first books published in 1945 by PAN and was an unnumbered hardback.
I’ve mentioned the BOAC Library before but HERE are a some more images. BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. In 1949 it absorbed British European Airways (BEA) and British South American Airways (BSAA) although BEA continued to operate British domestic and European routes. In 1971 BOAC and BEA merged forming today’s British Airways. Both BOAC and BEA had on board libraries with a variety of books from different publishers to loan and readers were invited to keep them if they hadn’t finished it by the end of the flight. I also like the one from Singapore Airlines Library, just what you want to read at 36,000 feet!
