Wishing you all the best for 2025 and to many more blogs.

I’ve mentioned the BOAC Library before but HERE are a some more images. BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. In 1949 it absorbed British European Airways (BEA) and British South American Airways (BSAA) although BEA continued to operate British domestic and European routes. In 1971 BOAC and BEA merged forming today’s British Airways. Both BOAC and BEA had on board libraries with a variety of books from different publishers to loan and readers were invited to keep them if they hadn’t finished it by the end of the flight. I also like the one from Singapore Airlines Library, just what you want to read at 36,000 feet!

There were a couple of PANs on eBay recently that I was definitely interested in but went above my maximum. They were ‘The Dam Busters’ which went for £78.99 and ‘Enemy Coast Ahead’ which went for £52. What made them interesting was the number of POW signatures they claimed to have, one with 19 and the other 17. It would have been fascinating to research the ones that could be read,

Wishing all fellow PAN Fans a very Happy Christmas
and successful book hunting in 2025.

A little while ago I was lucky enough to get the original artwork for ten Corgi covers by John Albert Richards (09/01/1915 to 01/07/1964). I justified buying them by saying they were a Christmas present to myself. I thought that a couple had also been used on Bantam titles but thanks to Rog Peyton who pointed out that the Corgi covers by Richards were nearly exact copies of the Bantams. To see the covers click HERE

I couldn’t find any Christmas examples of same number, different cover so it will be PAN number 66 ‘The Saint in New York’ this week. Two of the covers are variants by John Pollack and two are variants by artist unknown. The changes over the four years seems to be mainly due to match house styles.

It’s hard to believe it was 25 years ago today I started the website www.tikit.net just as a bit of fun scanning in PAN book covers when the normal resolution was 640 x 480 and I went for 800 x 600, cutting edge stuff. It was the time when you seem to pay for every byte on a web server so images and text were kept to a minimum but since then things have certainly changed. I’m not saying it’s cheap but you get a lot more for your money. I can’t remember when the blog started or even what the first was called but it was followed by Blogger and then, as now, WordPress. I looked on the Internet Archive and the earliest capture was from 18th August 2002 and doesn’t look too dissimilar from now. One day it may get a makeover but I’ve been saying that for a  long time, if it sort of works then don’t try to fix it.

This week we have five editions with the same number but with three different covers, namely Pan 42 ‘The Ringer’ by Edgar Wallace. It has been filmed several times including a version with Herbert Lom from 1952. It had a sequel, ‘Again the Ringer’ also published bp PAN as G567 and X441.

PAN Macmillan and Read for Good are giving away one thousand copies of ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ plus other bits and pieces to thirty one children’s ward’s around the country for those in hospital over Christmas. The staff at PAN Macmillan gift wrapped by hand copies of the 20th anniversary edition of the book and also included are festive activity packs and free access to The Gruffalo’s Child audio book and animated film, plus welcoming Gruffalo window stickers to help brighten up the hospital wards. Staff in each hospital will also receive a Christmas card thanking them for everything they do, written by illustrator Axel Scheffler and complete with a hand drawn festive Mouse or Gruffalo!

This weeks trio with the same number is different from last weeks in that it’s the later two that have the same artwork. This time it’s PAN 103 ‘The Avenging Saint’ by Leslie Charteris with the 1949 edition printed in France and having artwork by Stein while the 1951 is printed in the UK with artwork by John Pollack as does the 1952 edition but goes back to being printed in France.

I’ve started to read ‘Say I’m Sorry to Mother’ by Carol Dix with a cover by Jennifer Eachus. Although Dix wrote sixteen novels PAN appears to have only published this one which I picked up in a charity shop,. Since looking for other copies online I’m surprised at the prices being asked. Although the story revolves around four girls some of the stories resonate with me. Going to St Ives was something we did in the late 60s when we could drive and had acquired a Standard Vanguard with overdrive. Before then it was hitching around Ireland. When I was fifteen, and the start of the summer holidays, me and my mate Tavish walked to the end of the road and started hitching. After six weeks we had managed to go all around Ireland living on a large bag of oats, Cadbury’s chocolate, Major cigarettes and Guinness. We smoked ‘grass’ which could have actually been grass for all the affect we felt. We ran a hostel for a week when the warden dropped down dead in the pub .We had one change of clothes each and it was a good job those that picked us up, often a couple of friendly priests(!), couldn’t smell us before we got in the car. We had a tent or slept under the stars, in bus shelters or on beaches or if we wanted a bit of luxury, a youth hostel. We must have smelt a bit off as the daughter of one of the hostel wardens made us spend the day on the beach in our trunks while she washed and dried our clothes. We repeated this for the next two years but it was never quite the same again.

As I have mentioned before my other daily distraction, apart from PAN books, is helping to keep our local disused railway as a community asset, a greenway for all. It is not surfaced and is fine in the summer but in the winter it is something else. Since 2000 there have been promises of upgrading the surface to a proper walking/cycling route and making it part of NCN5. Well at last it is happening as part of a multi million pound scheme with, hopefully, the first of the three stages completed by March. We are also working on the Lichfield three mile section so, in the not too distant future, there will be a safe off road route between Walsall and Lichfield. The reason I mention this is that there are currently a lot of meetings happening so books are taking a back seat but hopefully not for too long. In the photo are representatives of the construction company, National Highways, SUSTRANS, the local council and me. Note the brand new spades just for the occasion!

PAN 172 ‘You Can’t Keep the Change’ by Peter Cheyney had three editions with this number, two with a cover by John Pollack and one with a cover by Sax (Rudolph Michael Sachs) It’s a bit odd in that the 1951 and the second reprint from 1952 were printed by Hazell Watson and Viney Ltd. while the 1952 edition was printed in France by Le Livre Universal, Paris.

While wrapping up ‘Rhymes With Berti’ by Martin Baker as a Christmas present for our grandson I glanced at a few pages and saw an illustration that looked familiar. It was a cat that first appeared on Martin’s painting of the cover of ‘Cat Amongst The Pigeons’ by Agatha Christie and published by Fontana.

I was disappointed in that I wasn’t able to visit ‘The Paperback and Pulp Fair’ held on the 24th November but as usual Jules Burt has produced yet another of his excellent videos running at just over an hour with very comprehensive cover of this and the ephemera fair next door. I’ve scrutinised it very careful but have not spotted that one elusive title I’m after namely X705 ‘Junior Crosswords Book 3’ by Robin Burgess

I’ve been watching this on eBay for a while and I’m not surprised it hasn’t sold especially when you can see the price inside someone was asking for it! It was one of the first books published in 1945 by PAN and was an unnumbered hardback.

I was delighted to receive an email from artist Martin Baker, having recently made up a page of the ‘foxtail’ series of Agatha Christe titles published by Fontana, with the majority featuring his wonderful artwork on the covers. Of the sixty nine covers I know of in this series (not including the biography) Martin painted sixty six of them with the other three having artwork by Tom Adams from a previous series. It was good to have Martin confirm that the ones I had not attributed to him were his, covers were I couldn’t spot the tell tale MB. Martin also confirmed he was the author of ‘Artist of Radio Times’ which I had queried. Martin was also kind enough to say “I’m attach a couple of pages from an autobiography rehearsing my Christie covers. This isn’t an egregiously self-regarding work – I’ve had a colourful life, and was asked to record it!” Click HERE to read the pages. I think I might have been tempted to buy some of those socks as they also show PAN covers. Here are a couple more of Martin’s books and I’m really pleased to say “Thank you” as he has signed and gifted a copy of ‘Rhymes with Berti’ to our grandson, I’m sure he’ll love it.

When I made a page of John D MacDonald’s ‘Travis McGee’ covers I thought I must have them all but no, up pops another one which I’ve added to the page. It is namely ‘A Deadly Shade of Gold’ from 1974. Which, as usual, begs the question “How many more are out there that I haven’t got?”

This weeks three editions of the same title with the same artwork but with a different house style is for PAN 100 ‘The Lost World’ by Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. They span the years 1949 to 1952 and are all UK printings by Hazel, Watson and Viney Ltd. Frustratingly I have yet to find the cover artist as there is no signature or initials to be seen.

It is 60 years this month (21st November) that Wilbur Smith’s first book was published in hardback namely ‘When The Lion Feeds’  Two years later PAN published it in paperback and it went on to sell over a million copies earning Wilbur a ‘Golden PAN Award’ This was to be the first of his twenty two of these awards. To celebrate the 60th anniversary Zaffre are reissuing it with the cover from 2018 but this one has a 60th sticker. There is a possibility that in South Africa it could be reissued with the PAN Hans Helweg cover from 1970 which is one of my favourites, This could tie in with the opening of the Wilbur Smith Museum in Cape Town. We shall have to wait and see.

In a recent edition of the ‘Fortean Times’ there was a letter from a reader about a mysterious vanishing/moving book. My son has this magazine and thought I might be interested as the book in question, complete with photograph, was ‘More Tales of Unease’ edited by John Burke from 1969 with the weird creepy cover. There was also a mention of ‘The Fourth Ghost Book’ edited by James Turner from 1968.

PAN published at least four of the thirteen titles written by Alvin Toffler (04/09/1928 to 27/06/2016) Wikipedia states “He was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide.Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed “information overload”. In 1970, his first major book about the future, ‘Future Shock’, became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies. He and his wife Heidi Toffler (1929–2019), who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society with another best-selling book, ‘The Third Wave’, in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, personal computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile communication”

Having enjoyed the films ‘Paddington’ and ‘Paddington 2’ we were looking forward to ‘Paddington in Peru’ but I have to say I was a little disappointed apart from the ‘smelly’ poster which smells of oranges when you rubbed them. It was on one of the large screens and there were all six of us in the cinema which may say something. I felt it lacked the subtle humour and interesting story lines of the previous two but then again maybe I’m not the audience it’s aimed at. PAN published several ‘Paddington’ titles under the Piccolo inprint with artwork by Fred Banbery.

This weeks featured cover is PAN 171 ‘The Saint On Guard’ by Leslie Charteris with artwork by John Pollack. It was used on at least three editions between 1951 and 1954. Pollack painted over twenty five covers for PAN including those for Leslie Charteris but also Agatha Christe, Peter Cheyney and Zane Grey.

‘The Yellow Jersey’ by Ralph Hulme is according to Bicycling Magazine “The greatest cycling novel ever written. . . . An underground classic. . . . A bicycling book that follows a different course—one with characters you can relate to, whose actions raise questions about life on and off the bicycle. . . . The heart of The Yellow Jersey is the Tour de France itself, which serves as a metaphor for life’ It was first published in 1973 with a PAN edition in 1975. I picked up a PAN copy which was well creased on the front cover and thought I’m sure I can get a better copy but having searched around I can find several from other publishers but not PAN so ended up buying it. I’ve started reading it but so far it has not ‘grabbed me’ although I am only a fair weather cyclist.

A while ago I found RUPA publishing in India had printed a copy of ‘Strong Medicine’ by Arthur Hailey but I couldn’t find any further details. I have now found a copy on a booksellers website but it has been sold although the image is still there so I have ‘borrowed it’ and added it to the appropriate page. This was based on the PAN Hailey series of titles which were branded ‘The World’s #1 Storyteller’ and inside it mentions PAN.

This weeks cover used over several editions is PAN 82 ‘Dumb Witness’ by Agatha Christie and is a Hercule Poirot novel from 1937. Between 1949 and 1954 there were at least five editions using the same artwork, albeit modified on some, by J. H. Bruce. Both the 1949 and 1950 editions were printed by Typographie Firmin-Didot, Mesnil, France while the 1954 was printed by Richard Clay and Company, Bungay, Suffolk and has a Flexiback Thermoplastic Binding and not a repair as often described by sellers.

Since I mentioned obtaining the ‘PAN Record’ number 34 last week I have scanned the pages in and added it to the ‘PAN Record’ page. In the past I have tried several different ways of offering the magazines to be read but either the software is too expensive to justify it, the ‘free’ version is to limited or full of ads or the software goes out of fashion like the reader I was using based on flash. At the moment I have only scanned in 30 and 34 but if it is a long cold winter I might be adding more.

One of my favourite artists was the sadly missed Derek A Stowe. I used to ring him up regularly and we would chat about this and that and put the world to rights. It was while putting a page together for him I started looking at ‘Understanding Science’, a magazine published in 144 weekly parts by Sampson Low of which Derek did a large proportion of the artwork. I have become fascinated of late as to how much mileage they got out of these magazines publishing them not only in English but in Spanish. The artwork was also used for several different compilations around a specific science area. My intention is to scan all the 144 covers and put them on a site along with all the spinoffs. To that end I bought a few in German from a bookseller in Czechia called ‘BookBot’ and I’ve been really pleased with the service and especially the price. The hardback copies are the size of an encyclopedia and cost just over £2 each while the carriage was just £4 and they came, very well wrapped, within 5 days. To see an example click HERE

The pop up bookshop has been in Wolverhampton for a few week and I’ve only just got round to visiting it where it has reverted to it’s old Location (next there February 3rd 2025) They have a lot of stock on shelves but sad to say not that many vintage paperbacks. They have been doing this for a few years now so they must know what sells and maybe it isn’t old paperbacks. I did pick up a few of titles as upgrades and a couple of first day covers with stamps painted by Brian Sanders. At 50p a cover with four stamps on each I couldn’t really leave them and my wife bought a postcard from 1883 for the same reason.

A while ago I put on a display of my ‘bits and pieces’ which included a bookmark celebrating PAN’s 50th anniversary. They said it was 1947 to 1997 but I’ve always said it should have been 1944 to 1994 as PAN Books were incorporated on the 1st September 1944. PAN changed its mind this year when they decide to go with 1944 and made this year its 80th anniversary. Somewhere along the line my bookmark disappeared so I was very pleased to pick up another one. This is a guarantee the original will reappear in the next few weeks.

While viewing another of Jules Burt’s excellent videos I noticed it included a copy of the ‘PAN Record’ number 37 which I had not seen before. Up to then I had only reached number 32 but now I know there are more to look out for. This made me do a quick search and I was very pleased to find another, number 34, that I hadn’t got. It turns out Jules and I had both bought our respective editions from the same seller. As always if anyone has a spare copy of the missing editions or can let me have scans of the pages please drop me an email. To view Jules’ video click HERE, the ‘PAN Record’ appears at about 42 minutes. More on number 34 next week.

Doesn’t time fly and the ‘Paperback and Pulp Fair’ is almost upon on us now less than a month away on the 25th November to be held at the Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury, WC1N 1HT. This is always a well worth visiting event as it on at the same time as the Bloomsbury Ephemera Fair also selling paperbacks amongst many other things.