Whilst hobbling around Whitby with the family last week I finished reading ‘On The House’ by Simon Hogggart which I enjoyed. With it being from 1982 I had actually heard of a lot of the MPs and could bring faces to mind, something I don’t think I can say for MPs now. There was one piece that reminded me of a holiday we had in South Africa (see scan above) It was a package tour and it was only halfway through we found out who David and Gillian were. Turns out they were Lord and Lady Waddington (the red trousers should have been a clue). He held many roles including Home Secretary under Margaret Thatcher and had visited South Africa many times but not as a real tourist. Apparently, unbeknown to us, we had all been vetted and he had to ‘report in’ every night but it also meant we got a few extra meals and excursions thrown in for nothing, Mind you he did fly first class, something not extended to the rest of us. I’ve picked up a few more of Hoggart’s titles to go on the ‘to read’ pile although only one is another PAN.
For those completest amongst us you have to be careful with PAN 175 ‘Forlorn River’ by Zane Grey. There are at least two printings, a first from 1951 and a reprint from 1953 with identical covers apart from a couple of things. There is message about writing to PAN for news on the back of the 1951 edition. and more interestingly, the PAN logo on the spine is in the usual yellow box on the 1953 edition but in red on the 1951. The original artwork by John Pollack appears to be in a completely different colour scheme.
I have several sets of Douglas Adam’s ‘The Hitchhikers’s Guide To The Galaxy’ but I will confess I’d not really looked at the covers of some of the later ones so I decided to remedy that. When I pulled out the 2016 edition of ‘The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe’ I couldn’t believe how bad it was, even if it is supposed to look like a menu cover, compared to the other four but that might be just me, I’ve scanned them all in just because I have them.
