My wife and I were delighted to receive an invitation to join Gordon Young and his wife Chrissie at his surprise birthday party at Barton on Sea last Saturday. Gordon was the ‘ships boy’ on PAN’s boat, the Laloun, back in 1947 when titles were printed in France. If you don’t know Gordon’s story catch up with his biography in part one HERE and part two HERE. It was a very good turnout with, we estimate, well over 50 people enjoying the very convivial atmosphere. Here is Gordon reading his congratulations card from King Charles and Queen Camilla. He tells me he has a lot more stories about his time at PAN so keep reading this blog.

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After featuring a couple of printer’s proofs last week, here are a couple more. The first one is for ‘Queen of a Distant Country’ which I’ve added to a page of later John Braine covers with ISBNs. PAN only published one of his using their eclectic numbering, this being M181 ‘The Jealous God’ The second is by Conrad Von Bark titled ‘The Second Red Dragon’ and again I’ve added it to a page of his covers with ISBNs.

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I picked up a ‘Piccolo Paperbacks 75’ catalogue from December 1975 which is made more interesting by featuring may illustrations from the books. It also includes a flyer for a competition for under 7s to draw a ghost and 7s to 12s to write a story about a ghost to win a bookshelf full of Piccolo titles. I will scan all of the catalogue for next week’s post.

Thanks to Maurice at Zardoz Books I now have four more printer’s proofs for PAN titles. One of them is for a book I mentioned recently, namely  ‘Lovely She Goes’ by William Mitford and another for ‘Masquerade at the Wells’ by Lorna Hill.

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I picked up a copy of ‘The Kappillan of Malta’ from the secondhand bookshop at the NT property of Shughborough Hall. I thought I had already got it but this copy was in better condition. When I went to swap them over I realised they were not the same. They are both 1975 but one is a 1st and one a 2nd printing with a cover by Harry Hants. I’m wondering why PAN felt the need to change it so soon although I prefer the 2nd printing.

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Just to prove that Kyle Onstott and Lance Horner didn’t have sole rights to ‘slave’ genre books, here is one by Nancy Cato. ‘Brown Sugar’ was published by PAN in 1977 and although the cover is in the same style as many others I don’t know the artist. The NEL edition, included on the page, has a less salacious cover but I was intrigued by how much of the blurb on the backs is the same.

Georgette Heyer was featured on the front cover of my ‘New Titles’ list for October and November 1979 and is from the later series PAN published around the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. So far I have 40 titles in the same style but very few have a named artist and if anyone knows of others I may have missed please leave a comment or email me.

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‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ by Ken Kersey was first published by PAN as a Picador in 1973 with a cover by John Holmes. It was republished in 1975 as a film tie-in and again in 2002 as one of Picador’s Thirty Books. The film tie-in is dated 1973 but the film came out in 1975 so it look like PAN didn’t change the text block.

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On the 16th of June 2023 PAN ran a competition to win goodies as listed below. This was to coincide with the publication of ‘The Ghost Ship’ by Kate Mosse. This would normally be well passed my cut off date but I happened to spot the ‘exclusive’ badge for sale for a couple of pounds and couldn’t resist. I am left wondering how few badges were made to make them exclusive?

I picked up a couple of titles by G H Frost featuring his ‘Recon Crew’. It was the cover artwork by Gino d’Achille that attracted me, even my wife said she liked the first one. Apparently Frost was also the author of at least five ‘Able Team’ titles.

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You can find some weird stuff on line and I was tempted by two sharks, one made from a gold colour metal and one white, featuring a 3D shark. The back shows part of the PAN cover for ‘Jaws’ from a later edition going on the tag line ‘It’s never safe to go back in the water’ and the word ‘JAWS’ is in the shark teeth style PAN used devised by Ken Hatherley. Not bad for a penny each. The seller said they are coins minted in 2000 to commemorate the 25th Anniversary?

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I have two copies of ‘The Nine Bad Shots of Golf’ with distinctly different coloured covers. I’m wondering if one has been in the sun too long but would the brown turn green or visa versa? They are identical in every other respect.

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Good to see the pop up bookshop was back in Wolverhampton where it will be until the end of the month. Unfortunately there was nothing that grabbed my attention even though there were more tables and shelves than last time. There is too much contemporary fiction for my taste unfortunately but they seem to be doing a good trade otherwise.

Anita Burgh was born on the 9th June 1937 in Gillingham, Kent and now lives in France. I’m not sure how many books she has written, I’ve seen 62 mentioned although PAN only published her first five titles. These included her ‘Daughters of a Granite Land’ trilogy. They have covers by an assortment of artists but one I was surprised to see was Simon Bartram. Why you may ask? Well read below.

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When I asked my Grandson William what he would like for Christmas he named four books by Simon Bartram. Simon was a name I thought was new to me but then I remembered seeing him in a list of artists represented by Alison Eldred. I email Alison to ask if Simon would be willing to sign the books he wrote and illustrated. By return I go a message saying he would love to do it and so William is now not only the proud owner of four of Simon’s books signed and embellished by him but also of sheets of stickers, books marks and, not that I’m jealous, his own personal alien! My sister in law is a teacher and Simon’s books featured in class lessons last term so now the signed copies and William’s alien have been view by several classes at the school in Maidstone.

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I picked up a book while in Kent, namely ‘Lovely She Goes!’ by William Mitford. It was the Sphere edition from 1981 which reminded me of the PAN edition from 1971. Not having the PAN to hand I bought the Sphere anyway to comparing them both. Neither copy appears to have been read and I’m wondering which has the most accurate representation of the trawler involved in the story as there are certainly differences?

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One of my other interest I have mentioned occasionally is the maintenance of a disused railway track as a walking/cycling greenway called the ‘McClean Way’ We have wanted it to be properly surfaced since this option was first mentioned in 2000. Now, at last, the first phase of the multi million pound upgrade is taking, place converting six inches of water and mud in to something suitable for all year round use. When this section is finished in a couple of weeks there will be a delay before phase two as we are entering the nesting season from March to August. It looks a bit stark at the moment but nature will soon reclaim the verges.