I recently hear from Shirley N. who emailed to say ‘Dianne Doubtfire was my father’s first cousin, the daughter of my grandfather’s younger brother. My father was born in 1917 and she was older than him, born 1915 (?) in Leeds as were her father and his two brothers. I can remember her from my childhood when she lived in Chessington, Surrey. Her maiden name was Abrams like mine. Her father was killed in WWI around the time of her birth. She was born in Leeds like her father and my grandfather. I don’t know if she ever moved to Harrogate to be nearer her school. My father knew her best socially when she was a student in Central London in the mid-1930s and, as he was there starting out as a civil servant, she invited him to various parties. She took the first name Dianne when she left home, as she disliked the name Joan. Doubtfire was the name of her husband, Stanley, who became a well-known engraver of bank notes and stamps. He designed the Churchill memorial stamp to mark Winston Churchill’s death in 1965. They had a son called Ashley who died in the 1980s. In the mid-1950s they had moved to Karachi when her husband was working on the new Pakistan currency. My immediate family lost touch at this point, though I know my father’s elder sister corresponded with her for some further years, as had my grandmother, who owned several of her books. I currently own a large drawing she made of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, which was given as a wedding present to my parents. I have also collected several of her novels in my retirement. The early ones, esp. “Lust for Innocence”, give a vivid picture of a lost world, London in the 1950s and 60s, which I remember from my childhood and teenage years” The reason there is a question mark is the mystery over when she was actually born. I had her down as 18th October 1918 from Ancestry in both birth and death registers but Shirley is positive she was older than her father born in 1917. PAN published her books ‘Lust for Innocence’, ‘ Reason for Violence’, ‘Kick a Tin Can’ and ‘The Flesh is Strong’ She also wrote books for the Topliner series, about collecting stamps and creative writing you can see HERE,
As I’ve often said I am a sad completest and after hunting high and low I thought I had got all the Piccolo/Piper versions of the ‘Jeremy James’ books by David Henry Wilson and then like buses, two more come along. They are ‘How To Stop A Train With One Finger’ from 1991 and ‘Please Keep Off The Dinosaur’ from 1994 both with covers by Ann Johns, of whom I can find nothing! Can anyone help with information on her or of any other cover variants I may have missed? I will add they have proved very popular with William, my six year old grandson.
I’ve been watching the artwork for ‘Angelique and the Sultan’ on eBay for while as it keeps getting relisted. It is in Germany and the asking price was 4,500 euros which I thought seemed a little steep and it appears so did everyone else but on the latest relisting it’s now 2,500 euros. I noticed on the page they actually have a screen grab from my site showing this book cover and also the Johnson artwork I have namely ‘Poisoned Paradise’ which if I remember correctly was about £15 as whoever sold it couldn’t read the signature.
