Having two aunts in hospitals in different towns plus the mother-in-law in a care home it seems to have been just one round of finding spaces and paying a fortune in expensive car parks!

On a more cheerful note I did manage to get a couple of books with interesting covers. The first is a double with one way up being ‘God, The Ultimate Autobiography’ and turn it around and over and you get ‘Satan, The Hiss and Tell Memoirs’ The cover is by Warren Madill described by his agent as “the original fine art forger” and I’ve emailed to ask if the artwork is original or a pastiche but no reply yet.

The second cover is what appears to be a Canadian edition of ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ from 1977. It does not say where it was printed but has the look and feel of the slightly tackier Canadian paper and printing.

…. and finally another taster of Gordons story with a photo of PAN’s book boat ‘Laloun’ moored up in Paris.

I’ve noticed a book on eBay that crops up now and again listed as a ‘Piccolo SPY Shelf’ title about the CIA. I’ve tended to ignore thinking it can’t be PAN as a children’s imprint and the CIA didn’t really seem to go together. In the end curiosity got the better of me and on checking found it was a Piccolo title plus there were two more in the series which I’ve scanned in and put HERE. The covers are by artist John Avon and I’ve emailed him but not had a reply up to now.I also noticed on eBay several sellers of ‘Battle Cards’ of which number 7 refers to Terry Oakes who painted several covers for PAN/Piccolo. The problem was that to buy just the one specific card would cost me about $5 but I could buy 71 including number 7 for $1 so I now also have 70 all different cards from 1993 which might end up in a frame.

I’m also really pleased this week in that I have got another chapter from Gordon, who is 92, and was a member of the crew of the boat ‘Laloun’ which PAN bought to transport books from the printers in Paris back to London. It’s fascinating reading but I’ll save it until I’ve got all the parts. There is one bit I’ll share and that is the boat should have been called ‘Lalun’ as after the character in the Kipling story ‘On a City Wall’ Alan Bott initially wanted ‘Patricia’ but boats registered at Lloyds must have unique names and this and second choice ‘Lalun’ were already in use so the ‘o’ was added to make ‘Laloun’

Since I first made contact with Paul Davies back in the Spring to ask about the 12 covers he produced for Leslie Thomas titles we’ve emailed on and off about various things. Just before Christmas Paul was generous enough to give me one of his cartoons he drew for the book ‘Some Missing Persons’

I was so pleased it was the one depicting ‘The Bookshop Owner’, unfortunately a fast disappearing breed. Paul has a website showing many examples of his work and also a very amusing blog, I think we have a similar sense of humour and I’m looking forward to meeting him in the New Year, either up here or down in Cheltenham where he is having an exhibition in August. This makes a change as it seemed all the people connected with PAN in some way live in London or down south on the coast.

On a different note while trying to find something to watch on TV on Boxing Day I came across a BBC ‘Countryfile’ compilation on James Herriot where you had to look carefully, blink and you missed it, to see a clip showing a pile of Herriot PAN editions plus a couple of mugs. I’ve added a screenshot of it to my ‘As Seen on TV’ page.

We are now into 2017 and so I’ll wish you all the best with many happy hours finding and sorting those PANs, maybe this will be the year I get that elusive last title!

Christmas 2016 has now come and gone which for us this year was a very quite affair with just our family of four but I did acquire for myself an interesting present. Due to unforeseen circumstances Johnny Mains is currently unable to continue his work on ‘The PAN Book of Horror Stories Scrapbook’ Johnny kindly offered me his archives as he knew I’d keep them safe which of course I will in the hope that one day he may feel up to finishing it. Les Edwards is also holding onto the cover he painted hoping it may be used in the future.

Along with many signed books, photos, manuscripts and contracts etc. I also got a couple of pieces of artwork for books 3 (William Francis Phillipps) and 16 (Alan Lee) I’ll be putting together some pages about the collection in the New Year but HERE is one with the covers. Book 3 is the later 1974 edition but uses the same artwork as X161 from 1962 which I’ll add later as it needs a new scan.

Here’s to many more happy finds in the future so I’ll wish all PAN Fans everywhere a healthy and prosperous New Year 2017

Finally got around to scanning in the original three Terry Oakes artworks I recently purchased but my scanner now seems to have fallen out with my computer and is having a sulk! I’ve ended up photographing them and luckily I’d already scanned in the covers to go with them. I will add more when the connectivity problem is sorted.

I managed to get the covers for two of the three titles in the ‘Borribles’ series by Michael de Larrabeiti. They are the first and third titles as I missed out on the second which was used by Savatage for their ‘Sirens’ LP cover and was bought by a fan. Terry also did vignettes for the backs and I have these for the first and second but not the third as this was of a character called Treld who was named after Treld Pelkey Bicknell who worked at PAN. She begged Terry for it and he gave it to her and apparently it hangs on her toilet wall

The third piece of artwork is for ‘The Death Rays of Ardilla’ by W E Johns one of the six titles in his space series. The other five covers will be added when the scanner is back in action, hopefully this week.

As Xmas will have come and gone by next Monday it just remains for me to wish all our faithfully PAN Fans out there a very ‘Happy Christmas.

Back from Germany where the Christmas markets were very much the same as the ones here in the UK apart from the Striezelmarkt in Dresden, the oldest Christmas market in Germany running since 1434. It was so good we actually bought bits and pieces as presents, had Bratwurst and got merry on Gluhwein. We also got a free hotel room upgrade as my wife didn’t notice the shower tray was leaking and literally flooded the room. Must try that again next time we go.

Only a couple of things to report on the books front. Relating to another of my interests, Ian Fleming’s from around the world, I picked up 3 in German with the alternative Michael Gillette covers already having a set of the others in hardback.

I also found a copy of the Marvel Comics version of ‘Return of the Jedi’ but I didn’t know they jointly published it with Piccolo in this country. Click HERE to see my rather tatty UK edition and below is the US cover. It’s interesting to note how the UK pound has fallen against the US dollar looking at the prices on the covers from 1983. Then you got two dollars to the pound but now it’s only one and a quarter.

Sorry didn’t have time so Terry Oakes will feature next week.

Nearly forgot, this site will be 17 years old in four days on the 16th of December.

UPDATE: Only just found out today (16th) that the site shares its Birthday with a PAN favourite, Philip Kindred Dick, who was born this day in 1928 in Chicago and died all too soon on March 2, 1982 in Santa Ana, California.Just counting up how many titles has surprised me as I’ve only found four: ‘A Maze of Death’, ‘Galactic Pot-Healer’, ‘The Preserving Machine’ and ‘Nick and the Glimmung’ It may seem like more because there are so many cover variants on at least three of the titles.

Very recently I managed to pick up some original artwork by Terry Oakes and I am putting together a page of some of his paintings for PAN/Piccolo. Terry now likes to stay out of the limelight and declined my request for a photo of him with the artwork but he did mention the photo below was on a website where it also had a brief biography.Terry was born – and still lives – in Merthyr Tydfil, a relatively small post- industrial town in South Wales. Naively deciding that his love of drawing could help him escape from a factory job, and driven by a love of Horror and Fantasy, he executed a series of sketches and paintings and sent photographs of them to various publishers.

A kind art editor at Sphere Books got him in touch with the late John Spencer, who had just founded an artists’ agency called ‘Young Artists’

From back cover of ‘La Derniere Syllabe Du Temps’

He saw potential in Terry’s work, and eventually got him commissions – which in time were sufficient in number for Terry to become a full time freelance illustrator. “From then on it was like a dream come true: to step inside bookshops and see my stuff on the shelves alongside the likes of Jim (Burns), Les (Edwards), and the inimitable Frank Frazetta – and to get paid, too! was as satisfying and self-affirming as anything that had happened in my life.”

Well-known in the 1980s for his SF/F, and “grand guignol” gothic horror illustrations and covers for Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone “Fighting Fantasy” gamebooks, “classic” British horror covers for books by Guy N. Smith, Richard Laymon, and many others, plus SF for major authors. Others from the ‘Young Artist’s’ agency, in the late 1970s,  were Jim Burns, Chris Foss, Bob Fowke, Angus McKie, and many others.

If all had gone according to plan I am currently in Berlin and hopefully this blog had launched itself. I’ll add the artwork next time.

In the meantime here are two books with the same Terry Oakes cover, I don’t have the artwork for this but it’s interesting that they are different titles but Terry is only credited on the French one (see above)

With two of the book covers I managed to get two back covers with vignettes but only one set is a matching pair. If anyone wants to guess the book titles they are very welcome but I show them all next week.

Slightly shorter blog than usual as my son is getting married soon and we’ve spent the last few days moving ‘stuff’ from here in the Midlands down to Kent where he’ll be living. We are sharing the driving using different routes for variety as the joys of the M6, M1, M42, M40, M25, M26 and M20 are now beginning to pall!

On the plus side Paul Simmons very kindly got back to me with a couple of photos of the artwork I featured last week. I’ve added the picture of him with the covers to the existing page. Click HERE to see it.

Paul also took the trouble to emailed some more information on the SAS covers and replied to my first comment about did he get paid twice when Severn House used them?

I do not remember seeing the Severn House publication of ‘Mailed Fist’ or whether I ever received any payment I’m afraid. It’s disappeared into the mists of time now.

I’ve retrieved the artwork I have from my archive (aka attic) and have the originals of 5 out of 7 SAS covers and also ‘End Quiet War’ and ‘The White War’. Thinking back I remember only 7, the last being ‘Borneo Story’. The missing artworks are ‘Mailed Fist’ and ‘Marching Fire’ – I gave both those away to a couple of guys who had posed for all the reference – they were ex-military (one had also done a tour with the SAS) and supplied all the uniforms, kit and guns which were still legal to own in the 80’s). The SAS guy emigrated in the late 80’s when the ban on handguns and semi-automatic full-bore weapons was introduced after Dun Blane – he was running a combat firearms school in Phoenix, Arizona when I last heard from him. The artworks are all painted in oils on board or on canvas boards I made myself so have not deteriorated at all.

Severn House doesn’t credit Paul for the covers but does say ‘With acknowledgements to PAN Books Ltd.

Off to Berlin next Saturday for the week to see if they have an English Christmas Market so not sure if there will be a blog next Monday?