Vintage illustrated guide book of Swanage and South Dorset

I've been meaning to blog about these wonderful illustrated guide books I picked up last summer for some time now but for some reason have only just got around to it. The books are all published by Ward, Lock & Co., and come in a red, linen type cover. They date around 1929 or 1930 and offer a fascinating glimpse into tourism of 90 years ago. There are articles on all the local chutches in each area, restautants, hotels, steam boat rides, railway routes (many of which are now sadly long gone), detailed, fold-out maps, and of course some wonderful adverts. For today I've decided to share the Swanage and South Dorset guide.

Front cover of Swanage and South Dorset guide

Various adverts from the guide book

Advert for Wright's Coal Tar soap

Back cover of guide book

As always, other vintage books and magazines, and also vintage postcards can be found on my web site

Theme Thursday - Food

I found this advertisement card inside a Blue Ribbon cook book that I picked up at a local village fete last summer. Thought it fitted in reasonably well with this week's theme of food.

As always, more vintage postcards and vintage magazines and books on my web site

Vintage magazines - Drive, from the early 1970's

I've now finally managed to find the time to scan in the rest of the Drive manazines that I picked up a few weeks ago. For now I'll just concentrate on the front covers, but may at some time in the future also blog about the great advertisements inside.

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Autumn 1972

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Spring 1972

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Summer 1972

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Summer1973

As always, more vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

Vintage Drive Magazine, c.1972

Whilst out looking for vintage postcards a couple of weeks ago I was delighted to stumble across 6 issues of Drive magazine from the early 1970's. I don't remember ever seeing this before but I'm fairly sure it's something my dad would have read. All of them have great covers, bizarre stories with classic 1970's fashions in the pictures, and some even better adverts. For this blog post I've chosen the New Year 1972 edition, which features an article and front cover dedicated to Spaghetti Junction. For readers in the US, perhaps this does not seem an especially large or complex intersection, but I do remember the stir it caused at the time. It was positioned at the junction of the M6 motorway, the A38 Sutton Coldfield road, the Aston Expressway to Birmingham city centre, and numerous other local roads, effectively joining up the M1, M5 and M6 motorways, and demolishing 130 buildings to make way for it. At the time this feature was written, it was already behind schedule, and had cost over £8 million. The junction is still in use today but has a network of other motorways to help ease the traffic.

Front cover of the New Year 1972 edition of Drive magazine

Feature on Spaghetti Junction

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Theme Thursday - Monster

A great choice of theme this week on Theme Thursday - Monster. Below are scans of my paperback copies of novels by one of my favourite authors, John Wyndham, both featuring monsters of one kind or another. The first paperback is 'The Day of the Triffids', originally published in 1951, this is the 1965 Penguin paperback version. My first encounter with Triffids was watching the 1980's TV series, which I thought was much earlier so perhaps it was the 1962 film version that I saw some time in the late 1970's. Either way, I remember it vividly and being very scared at the time.

The second paperback is 'The Kraken Wakes', which is also the title of a poem by Alfred Tennyson. Wyndham's novel was first published in 1953 and the version here is Penguin's 1973 version. As far as I can tell this has never been made into a film, although I'm sure the plot has been used in various 'creatures from the deep' type films.

As usual, lots of vintage magazines and books on my web site, and also vintage postcards

Sepia Saturday - vintage 35mm photography magazines

Another variety of vintage magazine this week, where it's time for a brief posting on vintage photography magazines. I picked up 6 or so of these magazines dating back to 1965. These 2 covers are my favourites. The magazines themselves are, if I'm honest, a little dry and factual, but there are some great vintage advertisements which, had I not spent all week dealing with the 'business prevention department' at work, I may have had the time to include.

 

35mm and sub-miniature photography magazine, c. February 1965

 

35mm and sub-miniature photography magazine, c. March 1965

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Vintage Cult TV Paperbacks - The Man From U.N.C.L.E

As promised several times, I have finally got around to creating a blog entry for my collection of paperbacks from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I'm assuming it needs little or no introduction, but just in case, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was a US TV series which ran from 1964 to 1968, featuring two secret agents, Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) who work for a secret organisation called U.N.C.L.E (the United Network Command for Laws and Enforcement). Their rivals were called THRUSH and, of course, were dead set on world domination and destruction.

I can't remember when I saw my first TV episode, probably during a 1970's re-run I would imagine, but I remember being fascinated from the very first few seconds. I picked up these paperbacks about 10 years ago at various locations, 2nd hand book shops, cahrity shops, book stalls at village fetes, etc., but have not come across any for a while now. I have numbers 1 - 5, 7, 10 and 11, so a few gaps, but also it looks as though there were no fewer than 23 in all.

Finally for today's post, I've also included the only Girl From U.N.C.L.E. paperback I have, and in fact the only one I have ever seen. Furthermore I've never seen any of the TV episodes although there would seem to have been 29. They featured Stephanie Powers, who later went on to appear in Hart to Hart with Robert Wagner, and Noel Harrison, and ran from 1966 to 1967.

 

 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. paperback, by Michael Avallone

 The Man From Uncle paperback no 2, The Doomsday Affair, by Harry Whittington

 

 The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. paperback no 1, The Global Globules Affair, by Simon Latter

I hope this posting satisfied those who were waiting for it. Maybe I'll feature my U.F.O. paperbacks next time.

Check out my web site for vintage postcards, vintage books and magazines and records and CDs