Short blog this week as it was our Grandsons 6th birthday which meant a trip to Kent to join in the celebrations. This was followed by the opening of the last section of the disused railway track to Lichfield we’ve worked on for the last 18 months. This appeared on the BBC News but the reel made by Lichfield District Council was much better. Click HERE to see it. Annoyingly they say it is Lichfield to Chasewater when it should Walsall as it is a continuation of the track we have been cleared over the last eight years. We then decided to go away in our camper making a site booking just before they announced Storm Benjamin was on the way and to batten down the hatches. We decided we would go and sit it out but in fact ended up sitting out under a blue sky in the sun. Certainly no sign of a storm here in the Midlands. Then the family came up from Kent as it was half term ……..

---

If you are anywhere near Wolverhampton the popup bookshop has made a welcome return until the 16th November In the Community Hub shop in the Mander Centre. I shall go along this week and hope it is well supported as it is a great initiative and takes a lot of setting up as can be seen here.

---

I was pleased to be asked to contribute a couple of cover scans to the Hugh Walpole Society Journal to go with an article in the latest edition. They were for ‘Mr Perrin and Mr Trail’ being PAN 48 by Bip Pares and PAN X508 by Pat Owen although there is a third painting, artist unknown, on the dustjacket usually found on PAN 48.

I have been asked to contribute a short article featuring Walpole’s books as published by PAN, I’m glad they said ‘short’ as it will be mainly covers of which I think there must be at least seventeen that I can think of off the top of my head.

I picked up the above painting by John R Keay which I was told comes from his estate. He painted it for ‘Look and Learn’ and strikes me a being a little odd. Why is there a stove, table and bed but no roof and where is the snow? John Keay, not to be confused with Jack Keay, painted at least 15 covers for PAN from 1951 with ‘Sorry You’ve Been Troubled’ through to 1958 with ‘A Gun For Inspector West’

---

Having mentioned last week the optimistic seller of a cover of ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ on eBay made me have a look at mine again and I noticed I had two copies of GP40 from 1956 on the shelf. Looking at them side by side I think I kept both as one has the price and the other has a PAN sticker covering it up. This was often done when UK priced copies were sent abroad and they didn’t have appropriate price stickers for that particular country.

---

Tom Lilley is a name I’m not familiar with although I do have two of his titles published by PAN. They are ‘The Projects Section’ and ‘The K Section’ and both feature Ralph Carter. I’ve tried to find out more about Lilley but not had much success. I think he published another two titles featuring Carter but I’m not sure of the specific order as two of them claim to be his first book. Were they the same but with different titles in different countries? I’ve put all four on a page HERE.

After mentioning some covers I was after I’ve had a good week tracking them down plus one title that has been on a wants list for quite a while. They were two editions of ‘Peyton Place’ from 1972 and 1976, the missing copy of ‘Down All The Days’ from 1971 plus two editions of ‘The Pan Book of Crosswords 5’ I’m still after several books of crosswords so if anyone can help with a scan or the book if unwanted from this list then please email or comment. As always I have to mention I’m still after a copy of X705.

---

I picked up another copy of ‘Oliver Twist’ illustrated by Hans Helweg as it was signed. What caught my attention was the dedication is in English but the book is written in Danish.

---

I do love the optimism of some sellers on eBay after spotting THIS had been relisted yet again.

---

Recently Ray Steptoe posted on Facebook several editions of ‘The Small Woman’ On looking more closely I’ve realised there is an edition I haven’t got. He shows five spines and so I’m now looking for the 1975 variant, another to add to the ever growing wants list.

I started to make a list of PAN published authors who may have been born or died around the date of a blog. Looks like I fell at the first hurdle as I had Christy Brown down as dying on the 7th October when in fact it was September. Not wanting to waste the scans of his titles and editions I have, I’m sharing them now. I’m sure I have the 1971 edition of ‘Down All The Days’ but can I find it hence a cover taken from the web as a temporary stop gap. Christy Brown was an Irish writer and painter born in Dublin (05/06/1932) He had cerebral palsy and could only write or type with the toes of one foot. His is probably most well known for his autobiography ‘My Left Foot’ which was later made into a 1989 Academy Award-winning film of the same name. He died in Somerset aged 49 (07/09/1981)

---

Another excellent video from Jules Burt has him looking through his PAN Majors and later titles. I love to see those covers although as usual there are one or two clunkers amongst them.

---

I have been a bit distracted recently playing with my newly acquired LEGO set of ‘Mindstorms’ When I retired, but returned to work part time, I went round schools with 15 sets trying to get the pupils to use them. I found it very frustrating wanting to do it all for them as most didn’t have a clue but knew I couldn’t. I’ve hankered after a set ever since and finally bit the bullet and looked on eBay. There were sets at all prices but I found one of version 2.0 at a good price and which I prefer because of the computer programming software rather than the later version 3.0. I started to watch it expecting it to soar but was out on the night it closed so image my surprise the next day  to get an offer of 50% off as it hadn’t sold. I’m now really enjoying myself with LEGO  having nearly forgotten how much fun it is, dare I say almost as much fun as collecting PAN books?

Amazon still sell version 2.0 for £422, I paid £29.50!