ENJOY WALKERS CRISPS NOW

Super late Sixties beer mat promoting Walkers Crisps and Potato Sticks. The photo shows the front and back of the same beer mat. The bold stylized image, and the two colour printing reminds me of the programme covers for Stoke and Coventry City football club from the early Seventies.

John Elvin & Bernard Gallacher at Sportsgraphic were responsible for the programmes at Coventry and also produced work for Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion football clubs. In 1972 their work was recognised with a D&AD award. It would be nice to think they were responsible for the Walker beer mats too!

1977 Newent Jubilee Celebrations

Somewhat late but another Royal post. This time a lovely A3 poster we found a while back detailing The Silver Jubilee celebrations in Newent, Gloucestershire. It gives an tantalising insight into life in 1977. 

Id like to have seen the bicycle gymkhana, but cant quite see how Brent Ford and the nylon rock band (Brent Ford & the Nylons) fitted into the whole Jubilee festivities. It would be nice to compare and contrast last weeks events with 1977!

KEEP IN A COOL PLACE

Picked up a few more rather nice elastoplast tins last week, which Im sure I'll post soon. But what I really liked (although I didnt know till I got home) was all three had the same phrase on the side of the tin. Reminds me of Abbevilles fantastic 1987 book, on the golden age of matchbook art Close cover before striking. Sadly, now out of stock, it has always been  one of my favourites!

1981 Plastic Charles & Diana shaped badge

Given its the Jubilee weekend, and they've given us an extra days holiday, something of a royal theme for today's post. This 2" plastic crown shaped badge depicts a rather serious looking Charles & Diana, back in 1981. Maybe the artist knew something about their fated relationship before anyone else, they certainly dont look very romantically inclined!

Pull along Russian cat

Here's something a little bit visually different from what we usually post, but too nice not to share. This gem of a find came from a recent trip to London, on a horrible wet and drizzly Sunday. We were not optimistic that anything would be on given the weather, but we stumbled upon a car boot near Elstree. Amongst an interesting hoard of house clearance items we unearthed this little treasure. The cat itself is wooden, but has a painted jesso surface. The base is roughly 6 X 4", and in total she stands 8.5" tall.

She sits on a wooden base, with wheels that roll along. On the base is a rather ornate gold label in Russian, but sadly Ive no knowledge of Russian and  can make no headway with what it says. Below is a close up of the label in case anyone can unravel the cats history.

Interestingly the stick (looks like a ice cream stick) on the base appears to move what looks like bellows, that sit under the base.  Whether the cat had some kind of musical movement at some point is  a mystery.

Sticking Plaster Elasoplast or band aid?

Call them what you will! Four fabulous adhesive bandage tins from the late Sixties/ early Seventies.

2012 CUP FINAL

Its the Cup Final tomorrow, and not only is it not the last game of the English football season, the FA have even moved kick off to 5.15. Is nothing sacrosanct anymore?

The fabulous little label is taken from The London Transport Museum archive, from the days when the Cup Final was still a central part of the British sporting calendar. You can search the London Transport archive via theme, and there are lots more football related posters if your interested!

Should you feel the urge for even more nostalgia, you can still download the 1975 FA Cup Final wallchart, that appeared in Tiger, that I posted back in 2009.

Going Metric tea towels

A couple of tea towels I missed out last week........Grrrrrrrr!

We come in peace!

Absolutely superb and really rather strange, 4.5" pink plastic female figure that Im lead to believe was made by Letraset, of rub down transfer fame. I'm still to be convinced.......

Apparently you were given sheets of colour that you rubbed down on to the figure (in this case her jumper). Unfortunately I cant find anymore to corroborate this story, but she does remind me of the rather awkward looking girl on the front of the Human League Being Boiled 7" cover, that I do know was taken from a Letraset catalogue.

Candy & Andy...... & Mr Bearanda

Apologies for the lack of recent posts, but back again with more plastic, this time in the shape of the rather unusual, Mr Bearanda.

Mr Bearanda was a Gerry Anderson creation that apparently, never really took off. Not surprising really given the very strange mix of dolls, animals and humans. Id not heard of the Candy & Andy series, until finding out who this little figure was. Like so many of Gerry Andersons TV shows, it appears he licensed the rights to Dinky, who created a diecast version of the car, Stripey (the magic mini) and a set of small plastic figures to go with it. Mr Bearanda is one of those Dinky figures.

I found out all about Candy & Andy at the very good Age of Uncertainty. Well worth a trawl. The comments on the post make interesting reading too.

Until next time...