Missed it again, this websites birthday on the 16th so belated greetings for its coming of age – 18 years and still going strong.
Here’s to many more blogs and postings and hopefully comments from anyone reading them.

With Christmas coming up I thought I’d share a piece of seasonal artwork by PAN cover stalwart Glenn Steward I bought off eBay for peanuts, I think it cost me more in postage than I paid for the artwork itself. He painted it as an idea for his personal card for 1995. I like Glenn’s work and have a few examples including the perennial favourite ‘The PAN Book of Card Games’ used for thirty years over several editions. I also have the front and back covers of ‘That Magnificent Air Race’ and the ‘Hanging Hitchcock’ which my wife hates (I really must update a couple of those pages)

Although not that much is know about Steward he was a very keen cyclist and was art editor for ‘The Sporting Cyclist’ with a seasonal issue like this which doesn’t seem to contain any of his artwork so here are a couple of cyclist he painted for a greetings card.
… and finally I went out for a Christmas lunch for members of ‘The Friends of Pelsall Commons’ as my wife and I are ‘Wardens of the Little Commons’ which means we do grand things like litter picks. It was at lunchtime and half a bottle of wine was beginning to take its toll but at least I’m wearing my PAN top as they said wear something red and that was all I could find – honestly!

A  few weeks back it was my pleasure to visit Colin and his partner Jenny and to see for myself his fabulous collection of original artworks used for PAN covers. There are over 550 pieces and I was so mesmerised that after several hours I’d still only managed to look at a quarter of them. Another visit is required soon as Colin is hoping to sell the collection to someone in The States as they were always intended to be his pension pot. I was offered them but unfortunately their price is a little too high even if I was to half it when I’m telling my wife! Jackie came with me on this visit but found the pleasures of wandering around the local village more interesting than covers – can you believe that!

I’m sure Colin  won’t mind me saying he is probably best known for all the music related books he has written over the years which total nearly 60 titles including works for ‘Guinness’ and ‘Virgin’ He is the brother of David Larkin who was Art Director at PAN in the 70’s and 80’s and so when PAN were having a clear out, having failed to reunite a lot of the works with their artists, he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. When Ken Hatherley thought PAN could sell them to raise money for charity rather than put then in a skip Colin offered a sum of money which was accepted and given to the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

It was in 1991 that Colin found he had a serious family problem and would need to sell the artworks to raise money. As was widely reported at the time the Bonham’s auction was boycotted by disgruntled artists and so not as many works were sold as was anticipated.

I have a personal interest in the collection in that in 2004 fifty six works went missing and Colin asked me to keep a look out for them coming up for sale. I was able to tell him I had already been approach and had, not knowing they were stolen, expressed an interest in purchasing them if the price was right. After numerous emails the transaction just went dead at the sellers end so I was not left with the dilemma of whether or not I kept stolen goods! With my information Colin was able to identify the thief and a prosecution was due to take place in court. I had been interviewed by the police and was on standby to be a witness but it never got that far. Here are some more details still available on the BBC News website, I was apparently the ‘art dealer’ as mentioned in the penultimate paragraph. It never got as far as court as most of the works were recovered.

I was so overwhelmed by the collection I failed to take as many photos as I intended but HERE is a page with a selection.

There are still one or two ‘unknowns’ in the collection, not only for artist but also book title, so I’ll include one a week for the next few week.

Very little is known about Carl Wilton apart from the fact he was a prolific cover artist painting numerous covers for PAN amongst others in the early 1950’s. Searching on-line I found several references to a Carl Wilton living at 8a Wentworth Studios, Manresa Road, Chelsea in the mid 30’s (where Dylan Thomas lived during the war) This Carl Wilton appears to have moved in the late 40’s and early 50’s to 5c Chenil Studios, Kings Road, Chelsea. Click HERE to see the original artwork for 23 Wilton PAN titles.

The reason I mention Carl was that I have just picked up some original artwork by him from 1960 though not for PAN but Hodder and Stoughton. There is a link between these two companies because as from the 3rd May 1947 PAN had the financial backing and titles it needed to expand thanks to help from these three major publishers, Collins, Macmillan and Hodder & Stoughton. Shortly afterwards a fourth, William Heinemann, joined them. Hodder had been reluctant until Alan Bott finally persuaded Hodder & Stoughton’s Editorial Director Leonard Cutts to join and Ralph Hodder-Williams was nominated to the Pan Board.

If anyone can add any information about Carl Wilton a lot of people would be very pleased especially post 1957 when he seems to have disappeared, possibly died, but I can find no record of this event.

Just found the following cutting from the Sidney Morning Herald from July 21st 1976 mentioning the ‘Golden PAN Award’ set up in June 1964 by PAN Books for authors selling over a million copies of a title. I’m currently attempting to compile a list of all award winners with their book titles but I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and consult PAN to see if they have a definitive list.

The main problem is that several other organisations also have awards with the same name for things like gold panning, food banks etc. plus there is also a Golden PEN Award for new writers but again used as a name by several organisations including the Nigerian Brewing Company.

I do have a standing invitation from The British Museum to let them know when I am next in London and able to visit as they will get the original Roman bronze, used by PAN as the basis for their award, out of storage in the Hamilton Collection.

Tailpiece – Just found that David Tayler has been deleted from Wikipedia. He was marked for this for some time and we tried to keep his page but it went yesterday. I’m left wondering why, when you see how many pages of dross are still on there! I’ll make a page for him on this site ASAP.

Sadly my Father-in-Law died last week. Bob had been suffering for several months but passed away peacefully in his sleep. R.I.P.

I mentioned in the last blog the passing of Desmond Digby original illustrator of the “Gumbles” books and went to sort out my three titles I knew PAN published under the Piccolo imprint. I was surprised to find that I had forgotten one was a later edition after Piccolo changed to Young Piper and that the cover was actually by Sandy Nightingale. I’ve sent her an email and will keep fingers crossed for a reply. PAN only published three of the four titles written by Sidney Wakefield and didn’t include the “Gumbles in Trouble” or the omnibus edition.

I also spotted a variant of a dust jacket on Flickr. This time it was for “Flames Coming Out the Top” by Norman Collins, PAN number 74, and the challenge now is to find a copy. To see the others go HERE. You’ll notice that there are two variant dust jackets for PAN 90 “Action For Slander” as well which makes me wonder how many of the others had more than one?