A few people round our way need to test their colour vision after the traffic lights sequence on the local common was changed resulting in several accidents. Red means ‘STOP’ and green means you can ‘GO’! When I saw ‘The Luscher Colour Test’ I thought great but it turns out not to be about colour blindness but is more trying to analyse you from your colour choices. Most of the suggestions tend to be on the depressing side!

Having recently acquired the original artwork by Kevin Tweddell for Pamela Belle’s ‘Heron’ series trilogy I couldn’t resist buying a bundle of her titles including a couple of signed copies. The PAN title is ‘Moon in the Water’ while the other is a hardback edition of ‘Survival of the Free’ signed by all the ‘Belles’ I contacted Pamela to check this and she kindly replied;
“Hi, Tim, sorry for the delay in replying, I’ve been busy writing! I didn’t know there was a Pan Paperback Collectors group – do you aim to collect every variation of every book? Quite a task, I think! With regard to the identity of ‘Diana’, I suspect that was my mother’s great friend who lived in Edinburgh (I can’t remember her surname, I only met her once, when I was 10). She died quite a long time ago, well before my mother (who died in 2005) and she and her husband had no children, so I’m not sure who had the books after they passed on. I think I must have changed the note about the poems, and then my mother sent the books to Diana as a gift. Sylvia and Brian Belle were my parents, and Penelope is my sister. I hope this helps, if you would like to know anything else then let me know”
In the photo Pamela is holding the hardback edition of ‘The Chains of Fate’ which was published by PAN and later Severn House Publishing with the same Kevin Tweddell cover artwork as the paperbacks

For some reason or other, while watching a recent episode of ‘Bargain Hunt’ (weird watching it with COVID social distancing in place) I was reminded of Jules Burt and his videos, now why could that have been? I have studied it intensely and still cannot see a PAN.

If you have not yet found Jules videos then you certainly should have a look as they cover so many different topics and several are PAN books related. Here are direct links to a few of them;

1) PAN Numbers 1 to 100
2) PAN Numbers 101 to 200
3) PAN Numbers 201 to 300
4) PAN Numbers 301 to 439
5) PAN Numbers G1 to G125
6) PAN Numbers G126 to G250
7) PAN Numbers G251 to G400
      

There are many more PAN related topics and new videos are appearing three times a week so make sure you visit often.

I always thought I had a copy of this PAN 1975 edition of ‘JAWS’ on the shelf but when I went to find it to rescan it was not there. I managed to get a copy off eBay at a very good price which turns out to have never been read and the embossed gold on the front is particularly vivid, the photo doesn’t do it justice. I’m sure I read somewhere this was an anniversary edition but no idea why as it is only the 17th printing from 1975?

Currently reorganising the shelves and randomly picking an author to scan their works. At the moment I seem to be in the ‘Ms’ and currently working my way through Ed McBain after May Mackintosh and Barbara Michaels. It’s very disappointing in that I’ve not actually discovered the artists but I could guess at a couple. I’m now adding these to the ‘PAN Later Editions’ tab on the Catalogue page as an author page rather than previously as individual titles.

I was really good to hear from an old acquaintance and fellow PAN Fan Johnny Mains.  He did so much to publicise the PAN Horror series including getting PAN to republish book one in May 2016. He emailed to tell me about what appears to be was one of those weird coincidences. Johnny was helping his brother-in-law remove an old shed and they discovered that part of the floor was actually a double sided wooden board advertising out of all publishers it could have been, PAN!

Johnny is going to clean it up and then varnish it. We hope we can meet up next year to catch up on all we’ve been up to over the last few years but who knows what may lie ahead?

I recently received comment on a blog from Tony Whitehorn to which I sent a reply by email. Tony was the chief blurb writer at PAN from January 1962 to November 1964 and he has very kindly written an article which will appear in the ‘Macmillan Together’ newsletter for former Pan and Macmillan staff but he has also let me have a copy which you can read HERE.

I asked Tony if he had a favourite ‘blurb and he replied “One of my favourite books, which I found exceptionally thrilling and moving, was ‘Seven Men at Daybreak’ (I knew nothing of the Heydrich assassination then – cinema and television hadn’t yet made it well-known) and for that I decided to highlight the moment I had found most tense, that when the two brave Czechs waiting for Heydrich’s car saw it suddenly sweep into view”

This is the fifth and final title of the PANs I recently bought that were signed to members of staff at PAN. It is ‘In Danger’s Hour’, one of the three Douglas Reeman titles I’ve found that have the PAN logo on the front. The artwork for all the titles is by Brian Sweet. I contacted Brian by phone, coincidentally almost two years ago to the day, asking if he knew where the artwork was? He said he have a look to see if he still had it but as I’ve not heard back I am presuming he wasn’t successful.

Still trying to find a 1969 copy of Morton Thmpson’s book ‘Not As A Stranger’ but I did find there was a Signet title on which some of the stories in this was based.

After visiting artist Keith Scaife in Leek last week I’ve put together a page of some of his PAN covers, the original artwork he had with him and correspondence from PAN as to how they wanted the covers to look. You can find the page HERE Keith is also an accomplished model maker and brought along the model he made for the bailer on a Lilliput Lane harvest scene including a thresher.

This week is number four of the five signed PAN Books I got recently. It is ‘Monkey Puzzle’ by Paula Gosling from 1985. She won the Crime Writers Association ‘Golden Dagger’ award for this the same year. I was pleased to find a couple of early titles had covers by Harry Hants which I will add to his page.

I am currently scanning the covers I already have with a few more ‘in the post’ which I’ll add as and when they, arrive hopefully.

I was sorry to see that Diana Rigg had died as she was part of my formative years especially in ‘The Avengers’. The only proper link I can find to PAN is the 1965 film tie-in edition of ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ where photos including Diana are on the inside cover as she played Teresa “Tracy” Bond (born Teresa “Tracy” Draco, and also known as the Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo) There is a very tenuous one in that she narrates the story of ‘The Snail and the Whale’ in the BBC series of which the book is published by PAN Macmillan, I did say it was very tenuous!

Thanks to Bazeer Fulmore who runs the excellent ‘Pizgloria.com’ website who drew my attention to a comment on a Facebook post that I had seen but I had missed an additional one from Ian Allison who posted a couple of photos.  It was a copy of ‘Leviathan’ by John Davis he had picked up in the States that had a sort of dust jacket as above. Now searching high and low to try and find one but no luck so far.

This week is number three of the five signed PAN Books I got recently. It is ‘April Fool’  by Viviane Ventura from 1983. This was an author I had not come across before and it turns out she has only written two books. I was intrigued to see she appeared to have been in one of my favourite films “The Wild Wild West” but it turns out it was the TV series of the same name from the 60’s on which the 1999 version is based.

I was really lucky last week in that I  met up with book cover artist Keith Scaife at last. He was born in Lymington but now lives in Penrith so neither was not the most convenient of places. Fortunately he spent his formative years in Leek where his Mother still lives and whom he was visiting over the weekend. We were lucky with the weather as it was going to be a meet up, at a safe distance in the garden but actually turned out to be the front room of Mrs. Scaife’s house (Thanks for the coffee and chocolate biscuits Heather) I’d arranged to acquire the artwork for ‘The Iron Tiger’which I collected and saw all the other Higgins covers at the same time. I will feature more on this and the visit next week.

FOOTNOTE We were a bit tied up last week with our eldest cat ‘Scruff’ who has recently developed teeth problems but struggles on wanting to eat so we had him booked in to have the bad teeth removed. The vet hinted that he might not survive the anaesthetic and it might be better to have him put to sleep as he also has kidney problems, anaemia and a serious heart murmur – oh and it will cost over £600! Well he did survive and is now almost back to how he was before he got the teeth problems although we have to give him a couple of drugs a day to help his kidneys.

As I have mentioned before, if you have not seen Jules Burt’s ‘YouTube’ videos then you must give them a go. They are not just about vintage paperbacks but many other subjects with a retro theme. I can especially recommend the one ‘Vintage Paperback Collectors Resources – Summer 2020’ and this has nothing to do with my website and in particular this now regular Monday blog getting a mention. I try to include at least three things  and most of the time they have a PAN Books connection!

This week number two of the five signed PAN Books I got recently is ‘Hollywood Husbands’ by Jackie Collins from 1987. I went to put in a link to a page of other covers of her titles which I’m sure I had done but can I find it? I found a reference on another of my blogs saying I was going to do it but ………. keep visiting, it will be there one day, honestly. 

I managed to track down a couple more Victor Canning titles in the series where his name is in a distinctive style of type compared to an earlier series where it was the surname in a cartouche shape which can be seen HERE. I have two more I found on the net but although many sellers show them they are more often listed as ‘Stock Photo’ plus one in the States where the quoted postage is over £18! Click HERE to see the later series.

Bit short of time this week as we have been down in Kent for a few days for our Grandson’s Christening. It was amusing in church where we all had to wear masks watching the vicar trying to blow out a taper while wearing his.

As I mentioned a while ago I got several signed PAN editions and here is the first one, namely ‘Flood’ by Andrew H. Vachss and it’s not quite the standard run of the mill edition but a ‘special advance reading copy’ no less! I’ve not found many around but I did spot an auction site where one of the lots had several copies but as usual can I find the page now to check? I’ve included a scan of ‘Blossom’ as although PAN published many later titles by Vachss this, ‘Flood‘ and ‘Strega’  are the only ones with the ‘PAN Man’ logo on the spine if not the cover that I’ve spotted so far.

After a bit of negotiating I managed to pick up a piece of original artwork by the late Kevin Tweddell from his daughter. It was a little more than I usually pay but as it is a triptych I suppose I am getting three covers for my money plus they were also used on the later hardback editions from Severn House Publishing. You can see a better image of the artwork and other titles by Pamela Belle by clicking on the image below.

I am puzzling over two cover versions of ‘The Stone Leopard’ as to why PAN felt the need to alter the one from Canada dated 1976 to when it was republished in the UK in 1985? Both versions have Gino d’Achilles’ monogram and he also did another version I found on line but unfortunately can’t find a coy for sale to buy and to check the date, anyone out there with one to spare?

Having ‘confessed’ in the past to have a collection of all the ‘Confessions’ books using the excuse they are based around where I live so for ‘research’ purposes I found a similar series from PAN. They are ‘The Secret Lives of ……’ and I have eight titles so far but looking at the listings inside that might be the total number. When I have finished reading the ‘Travis McGee’ series I’ll give these a go. Speaking of these I’m not sure about the ‘McGee’ books as they have so disparate story lines I think they could be standalones with ‘McGee’ superimposed on top. They lost all credibility with me when MacDonald has ‘McGee’ hiring an Austin Moke with an ‘air cooled engine’ and as everybody knows the Moke had the ‘A’ Series water cooled engine, poor research!

I saw someone selling a signed copy of a Douglas Reeman title on eBay at a very reasonable price and when I looked I noticed they had several other signed PAN titles by different authors. As they were all at a price where it would have been rude not to bid I got all five as luckily nobody else did. They are yet more copies signed to ‘Celeste’ who as I’ve come to discover was Celeste Parsons employed at PAN  and who must have passed on her signed copies to many dealers as I bought them from at least four different sources up to now. I’ll put them on over the next few weeks

Having many ‘searches’ logged with various book sellers I am sometimes surprised at what comes up and here is a case in point. It was for a hard backed version of  PAN 116 ‘Great Poems‘ and erroneously listed as published by PAN although there is a connection. This edition was published by the ‘University of London Press’ with acknowledgement to PAN as below. My copy seems to have been presented to someone who worked at ‘Eagle Star’ as there are three pages of signatures from their colleagues. Some might say this devalues the book but I think it just adds to its history. My PAN edition has the price stamped on which is unusual as I only have a few other titles like this, it is more often a sticker.

I was really sorry to hear that Lizzie Sanders nee Moyes had died last week after a long illness although she endeavoured to keep herself full occupied  for as long as she could. Sandy (Brian Sanders) emailed me to say “She has packed more into the last four years than many would manage in a lifetime. In the past year alone she has published – with her historian hat on – a book on the historic landscapes of Audley End and organised a village arts festival which raising a considerable sum for charities. She is currently trying to finish a map study relating to early Saffron Walden which was at the time called Chipping Walden and Brook Walden. I love her so much” My wife and I send our condolences to Sandy and Family and I will always think of Lizzie every time I see a Yorkshire tea box as it features her artwork. I have three PAN’s with her covers but I’m sure there is at least one more. HERE is a link to Lizzie’s covers and HERE is the link to a page I made after vising them in their home near Saffron Walden.

I don’t know why as they are not really that attractive for a site that claims it “does judge a book by it’s cover’ but I do like proof editions and  I recently picked up one for Arthur Hailey’s ‘Airport‘ Part of the fun is looking through them to see what notes and scribblings have been added but this time I’ve drawn a blank just like in the book!

So after being told to stay safe, stay alert and social distance our beloved leader,  Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, now tells us we are all too fat and at more of a risk of catching COVID-19. Talk about ‘pot/kettle’ so as part of my effort towards being community spirited I’ve put together a few useful titles on a page HERE. Actually there aren’t that many, just different editions, but I do like my original artwork for the Stillman cover. I’m pleased it still has the colour swatches attached and it’s amazing that in some parts all the individual letters were stuck on by hand.

Only in the UK could the government tell us to cut down on our ‘fast food’and then subsidises restaurants, pubs etc. to offer half price meals for three days a week all through August! Unsurprisingly some of  these venues are re-closing due to outbreaks of COVID, just what I pay my taxes for. I’d get out more but they are now suggesting the over 50’s need to ‘shield’ themselves.