Chairman’s Report

I am pleased to report that we have been able to reschedule Cliff’s talk for the first meeting in May, following the unfortunate cancellation due to the snow in January. It should be most interesting to hear of local people and places. The last auction went well and we look forward to the next one in April. Please look out items for the following one in July and bring them along as soon as you can.

Our first outside speaker of the year was Peter Delaney on his Royal Blue Coaches. This was a super evening with a lot of the history of the company and some nice pieces of ephemera. If you see a Royal Blue Coach on your travels, give the driver a wave, because it might be Peter driving.

The Letter E competition wasn’t very well supported, with only 8 entries. Ken Hussey won the postcard section, Derek Davis the cigarette card, and Margeret Hussey the mixed. Looking ahead at the annual competition at the Club Fair, if you want to take part the boards are available from Boville Wright in Maidenhead or Hobbycraft in Reading. Brighton’s in Woodley also sell the boards, but not the protective covering. Go on. Have a go, you might surprise yourself!

The Club Dinner was very well organised, as usual, by Roy and Ann and during the evening we were trying to work out how many years it has been since they started doing it. Well over 25 years. So a very big thank you to both of you. It was a wonderful evening. It was also nice to see Geoff, after his major operation. Let’s hope he makes a speedy recovery.

We had a superb talk and display by Graham Wright and family on lesser known publishers of Trade Cards. Some of them were so rare that if you didn’t see them on screen, you would never see them anywhere else. So why are many cigarette card collectors reluctant to show and display their cards? Thankfully at this club we don’t have that problem.

It was very pleasing to see many club members at St Patrick’s for our presentation to the people of Charvil. The team of Roy, Tony, John and myself spent a lot of time and effort putting this together and the club members who were there want us to show it at a club meeting in a year or so. Sadly only FIVE people and a dog turned up to see it. There was plenty of publicity, both by the Charvil committee and by Roy who did us proud in the local papers. So it was all a bit of a let down.

 

A Blast from the Past: 2 – I Love Lucy

“I love Lucy” was an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball & Desi Arnez. I was surprised to see that it ran in America from 1951-1957. I think it must have been on British Television at a later date, as we didn't have a television in our house until 1960 for Princess Margaret's wedding. After the initial “I Love Lucy” series finished in 1957, the show continued with thirteen one-hour specials from 1957-1960.

Please let me know if you find these “Blasts” interesting. I do make an effort to find cards to illustrate them. If you like them and have a show you would like mentioned you know where to come. (Ed.)

Recent Aquisition

I recently purchased off eBay two Allen & Ginter non-insert cards, one of which is illustrated here. If you have any cards that you would like to show other members please let me have them.

Mike Tubb

The Fairey Rotodyne

For those who lived in or near Maidenhead in the early 1950s, you would hear the Rotodyne long before you saw it, as the prototypes were tested at White Waltham. At that time British European Airways (BEA) required a 30/40 seat short haul airliner and Fairey Aviation responded, which resulted in the award of a Ministry of Supply research contract in 1953 to develop the Rotodyne.

The prototype [Y] was powered by two Napier Eland propeller turbines, which made its maiden flight on 6 November 1957. It took off vertically as a helicopter and having gained height flew forward as a normal twin-engine airliner. It could carry 48 passengers or 4 tons of freight. At 185 miles per hour cruising speed, it had a 400 mile maximum range. On 5 January 1959 it flew a 62 mile closed circuit course at an average of 191 mph for a new world convertiplane speed record.

By mid 1959 both New York Airways and BEA expressed their interest by saying that they might purchase at least 12 machines, but thought that the plane would be too small. So the plane would have to be redesigned. The aircraft type [Z] was to be eleven feet longer, the wingspan increased from 46 ft to 75 ft with two Rolls Royce engines instead of the Napier. The two rear fins were also increased in height, along with a central fin.

 

The aircraft and helicopter activities of Fairey Aviation were merged with Westland in February 1960 who became the sole helicopter manufacturer in the UK. The process of re-organisation slowed the progress of the Rotodyne, then BEA withdrew their interest and the programme was finally withdrawn in February 1962. Sadly it never became a viable proposition, but was the Rotodyne technology before its time? The use of VTOL has frequently been proposed to help in runway congestion with all the short haul airlines today and what about military requirements? Who knows what might have happened if the Rotodyne programme had continued.

In the course of its five year flight programme the Rotodyne completed 430 test flights and over 300 hours flying. All that remains of the prototype is a small section of fuselage, the rotor head and pylon structure, a test rotor blade and a few tip jets. These are held at the Helicopter Museum at Weston-super-Mare, as shown in the photograph below.

I have these three trade and one cigarette card, but sadly I do not have a postcard.

 

Pen Portrait No: 3 – Mike Tubb

I thought that when Gary Arkell started off the pen-pictures two newsletters ago that I would be flooded with members portraits, unfortunately I haven't. So as nobody else has put pen to paper yet you are going to have to put up with me, but I can only do this once. I was to be the non-playing reserve but I have come on as substitute far too early.

I was born in Reading and lived my early years (first thirty more or less) at Shottesbrooke, where my father was Head Gardener on Shottesbrooke Estate. I went to White Waltham School until 1959, when I transferred to Maidenhead Grammar School, as it was then, now Desborough. This is where I started my first batch of collecting as I became a train spotter. I continued spotting for quite a few years and travelled extensively around Britain visiting various railway works and engine sheds.

After leaving school, I started work at Maidenhead Post Office counter in the High Street soon moving onto other duties at the Stafferton Way premises. It was whilst there that I started collecting stamps. I left Maidenhead Post Office in 1969 and began commuting to London where for the next six years I worked for a stockbroker. The commuting helped me to continue train spotting and near to the London office was a stamp shop from where I expanded my stamp collection.

According to Mike Lee I knew him before I was actually born as his mother and mine were good friends and it was Mike who introduced me to cigarette card collecting around 1971, if my memory serves me right. A year or two later, and how I cannot remember, I got to know about the Reading Branch of the Cartophilic Society whose small membership included Tim Blay, who it has been really good to see at recent meetings. The only thing I can remember about those meetings was watching football on Tim's television, but I imagine there was some card talk. The branch more or less folded until I attempted to revive it in 1976 and I think you all probably know the history of the branch since then. How my initial efforts were so well carried on by Ken Hussey, Brian Eighteen and now Coral as 'leaders of the pack' and many others who have worked to help the leaders.

I was involved with Peter Jones and later with Ken Hussey to start and run Collector's Fare and Loddon Auctions until I had my first heart attack in 1989, which caused me to cease many of my activities. My health however has improved after two more heart attacks in 1996 & 2003 and has allowed me to continue my collecting and also produce this newsletter with the bonus of being retired from work.

My collecting has changed many times over the years and when people say what do you collect, I usually answer anything I like the look of. I have gathered and then disposed of quite a few collections over the years. At present my main collecting interest is Advertising. Be it cigarette, trade, railway handbills, postcards, ephemera, etc. etc. The wonderful thing I find about collecting is that you can never reach the end, so it is a hobby for life and I am sure many collectors live longer just looking for that elusive card!

Editor's Musings

I hope that you enjoy this issue of the Newsletter. By the time you receive the next issue our Annual Fair will be upon us or even gone by so now is the time to start preparing your entries for the competition.

It has been a very eventful start to the year for the club and I am sure that you will all join me in wishing Geoff a speedy recovery from his operation. It was good to see Brian 18 at our meeting on Thursday for the so interesting talk by Graham Wright, ably assisted by better half and Angela. As was said by Bryan Clark in his appreciation about there being a good woman etc and Graham is lucky to have two! The only card shown of which I had even one was the Mazawattee Kings & Queens.

Prior to that we had an interesting talk on Royal Blue Coaches by Peter Delaney. I was particularly interested in the picture of the coach station by the Granby Cinema east Reading. I had an aunt who lived in De Beauvoir Road with whom I used to stay with as often as I could, as she used to take me train spotting (see my Pen Picture). De Beauvoir Road ran along the other side of the Granby Cinema to the coach station.

I am glad to see that we will not have to wait too long to see and hear Cliff Maddock's talk on Local People, which had to be postponed in January due to adverse weather conditions. Well done Coral for cancelling it in good time. Not like football when the visiting fans have already travelled!

I will end this piece with another plea to all members to either look for cards or pen and paper to put a piece together whatever it might be for YOUR newsletter.

Mike Tubb

Previous Newsletters(click to access)
	Newsletter Spring 2009
	Newsletter Winter 2010