
Newsletter 2010 - 3 Contents - Click to go to:-
Chairman's Report	Editor's Statistics
Hawkhurst Village Centenary A Blast from the Past:	Topical cards for today
Annual Fair	The Story Behind the Card Reading's VC Hero
	Pen Portrait - Geoff Ashton
Editor's musings	Previous Newsletters
Chairman’s Report

It seems a long time ago that we had the Annual Club Fair, but as usual it was a great success. Numbers through the door did not fall, in spite of the economic gloom and we were pleased to welcome eighteen dealers as ‘new faces’. My grateful thanks go to Roy and Geoff for the brilliant job they did in organising the event. More than thirty club members were involved as organisers, dealers or helpers, which shows what a great spirit there is within the club. As the editor is also writing a report, I will not duplicate his comments.

Thank you for ideas and comments put forward at the Open Forum. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to join, but am pleased to hear that the general feeling is that you are keen to have more of the same.

We are getting good attendances at the meetings and it was very nice to see so many of you at the evening that Tony King gave his superb talk on “The way it was”. It got us all thinking and reminiscing. It takes you back, but that is what collecting cards is all about.

We welcome new member Julian Allen and look forward to seeing him at our future meetings. Mike does a superb job on the newsletter, but he would like a few more articles from you. Surely you have a special card or set that you could write about. It doesn’t have to be as long as War and Peace, just a few lines would do.

Keep up the collecting and enjoy your hobby.

Coral Print

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Stats

Card competition winners:
Editor's Statistics	Jun 24	Jul 8	Jul 22	Aug 12	Sept 9	Sept 23
Attendances	31	35	30	31	35	24
Cigarette Card	DD	MT	JJ	BB	MT	DD
Trade Card	JJ	MT	MT	JJ	MT	MT
Postcard	GA	BB	MT	JC	MT	JC
Ephemera	MT	KT	JJ	JC	KH	JC
JC = John Cahill, DD= Derek Davies, CP = Coral Print, MT= Mike Tubb, JJ= Jenny Jerrum, TT = Tim Twitchen, BB=Brian Brinkley, KH=Ken Hussey, KT=Ken Townsend, GA=Geoff Ashton

Club Fair and Competition - Sunday 24 July
	A wonderful day out for all who attended, the highlight of the club's year with a great attendance and wonderful exhibits for all to view. Many thanks are due to Geoff and Roy and all the other club members who made the day so memorable.
For those who don't yet know, the competition winners were as follows: Class 1 Cigarette Cards or Trade Cards or Both: Roy Hathaway Class 2 Postcards: Coral Print Class 3 Cigarette Cards and/or Trade Cards with Postcards: Roy Hathaway I hope next year that we have more entries to admire. Some new names on the trophies would also be welcome, so get started now!!
131 visitors took part in the judging and the two 'lucky' judging forms drawn after the competition had closed were for Cliff Maddock and Keith Stephenson both of whom won £20. Two members to note who did so well on the day and have the same positions pencilled in for 2011 were Hon Photographer: Liz Tebbutt (two of her photographs illustrate this piece) and Hon Compere Extraordinaire: Bryan Clark!

Topical cards for today

I write this on the day the Pope, courtesy of the tax payer, has arrived in the UK. I don’t have a card of the present Pope, so Joseph Sarto will have to do. His name was apparently drawn out of an urn (so it says on the back of the card), obviously something akin to our raffle, on August 4th 1903 and he was crowned as Pope Pius X on August 9th in the same year. (This view is completely my own and not the Club's or of any member of the Committee).

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We have also recently been reminded that 2010 is the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. To illustrate this I have put in two Edmonson's Sweets Cards of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane and for the steam engine enthusiasts Great Western Castle Class no 5071 Spitfire.

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hurricane

train

A Blast from the Past: 4
Hawkhurst Village, Kent Celebrates a Centenary

HAWKHURST - Its name from the time of the Danish Vikings means "a clearing in the forest for the sport of falconry" - is an attractive Kentish village close to the county's southern border with Sussex. But possibly few people this side of Tunbridge Wells, maybe, will have heard of it.

This year however, Hawkhurst celebrated a great centenary. It was not an anniversary which one would immediately associate with such a quiet, typically-English village: a charter creating it a market town, perhaps; a hundred years since the church bells were renewed; commemoration of the opening of the long-gone railway line?

No. Hawkhurst's unlikely claim to fame is that it was there, 100 years ago that the OXO cube was invented. Yes, it's true. The man behind the creation of the tiny culinary complement, used in homes, hotels and restaurants throughout the world, was a wealthy man named Charles Gunther.

Born in 1863 he lived, from 1903 until his death in 1931, at Tongswood House, on his 3,500 acre estate at Hawkhurst, and here's the link for card collectors: he was chairman of the Leibig Extract of Meat Co, founded by the eminent 19th Century German scientist Justus von Liebig, who we thank for the famous beautifully-illustrated trade cards produced in up to 12 colours, which bear his name.

Charles Gunther, who launched the meat extract in cube form in 1910, raised and exported bulls from his Kent farm to Frey Bentos, the Liebig beef centre in Uruguay, to improve the quality of the South American herds there.

Back in Hawkhurst for the centenary celebrations there was an exhibition of OXO cube history, tours of the three farms on the estate, cooking with OXO demonstrations, cream teas in the garden and a gala dinner at £45 per head. Goodness - one could buy a couple of sets of Liebig cards for that price!
John Howes

Mike Tubb adds: I have found two items from my collection to illustrate John's very interesting article. A reward Card from OXO Cattle Studies and an advertising insert for OXO stating that it was prepared by Liebig's Extract of Meat Co. Ltd.

The Story Behind the Card - Gallaher V.C. Heroes No: 61

Frederick William Owen Potts V.C. The only Reading born V.C. winner.

The deed which won Fred Potts the V.C., our highest award for gallantry took place on August 21st 1915 in an attack on Hill 70 at Gallipoli. Private Potts, although wounded in the thigh, remained for over 48 hours under the Turkish trenches with another private from his regiment, Trooper Arthur Andrews who was severely wounded and unable to move. Private Potts finally fixed a shovel to the equipment of his wounded comrade and using this as a sledge dragged the man back over 600 yards to safety being under fire all the way back to the British lines.

This act of gallantry was not the first brave deed of Frederick Potts as the Berkshire Chronicle reported on June 20th 1913 with the headline 'Youth's bravery, parents appreciation'. On Sunday afternoon June 8th an incident occurred which may have been fatal but for the bravery of Fred, (living at that time at 54 Edgehill, Reading). Two brothers residing at the Sailors' home in West Street, got into difficulty and one fell into the River Thames, his brother called for help and it attracted the attention of Fred, who taking the situation in hand dived into the river although fully dressed and pulled the boy to safety. His parents greatly appreciated Fred's bravery and presented him with a new suit.

Arthur Andrews who Fred saved in Gallipoli lived with his parents in the yard of the Sailors' home from 1890 until 1927. The pub in West Street being owned by the Rex family the parents of the boy Fred saved from the river.

The grandchildren of Fred Potts and Arthur Andrews met up recently and although both families knew of the story they had never met, although both families lived in Reading.

Plans are underway to raise funds for a memorial in Reading, Fred's home town - a memorial which is long overdue. The Forbury Gardens has been earmarked for the £60,000 monument for Reading's only V.C. winner. Currently the only tributes to Fred are plaques in both Brock Barracks and Katesgrove Primary School, which is in Dorothy Street where Fred was a pupil.

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Pictured are the front and back of Gallaher's V.C. heroes No 61, which the club obtained for Frederick Potts' family.

Michael Lee

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Pen Portrait No: 4 – Geoff Ashton

It was clear that I had the collecting gene from an early age. When I was seven, I was collecting stamps in packets purchased from Woolworths for sixpence or a shilling. With the aid of a couple of booklets, my knowledge of world geography and currencies developed quickly. I also had a first day cover with the stamps issued for the Coronation in 1953. Later on I specialised in the early stamps of Great Britain, which led to an even greater interest in postal history and the means by which mails were carried abroad. Understanding the routes and rates particularly in the pre-stamp era proved a real challenge, but the increasing cost of better items became a severe limitation.

So one day in 1990 when browsing at a stamp fair I came across some postcards of Southend, where I grew up, and another collection was born! This soon led to an interest in the cards of Maidenhead and Marlow and membership of the Reading Club. Having a lifelong interest in railways and the history of London, it wasn't too long before I noticed a card of Charing Cross Station. The number 82 implied there were others and the world of LL cards unfolded before me!

Having met one or two other LL enthusiasts, I was surprised that no collectors' club existed. So I suggested that others should contact me if they were interested and in a short time a Collectors' Circle developed with sixty members. Close collaboration has led to comprehensive listings of all known UK locations covered and the steady development of our collective knowledge about the history of the firm. The lack of surviving records adds to the challenge, but the advent of the internet has also opened up a network of contacts that would not have been possible otherwise.

The great joy is to be learning all the time, the challenge is remembering what one has learned!

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Editor's musings

Here we are in October with the fourth and last newsletter for 2010. There is no doubt that as we got older time does pass even faster! Thank you to John Howes, Michael Lee and Geoff Ashton for producing articles. I could always do with some more. I am sure that many of you have views of the past that you could put together an article or a Pen Picture of your life and collecting.

We are all sorry to hear of the untimely death of Jim Strong, who was a very active member of the club for many years.

I think that the monsoon type weather before the last meeting on September 23rd, resulted in our lowest attendance since February 25th, but one good thing is that the report on members' ill health is thankfully getting shorter. However we were missing our President Ken Hussey, who had been in the Royal Berks hospital for some remedial treatment on his back. John Cahill under the care of Ann is looking better every meeting and claims to be so which is good news. Geoff Ashton looked as if he had had a really good holiday. I just hope that the production of this newsletter doesn't cause him any problems. He is also under the care of Anne, different one to John C though!

It is amazing what General Dealing evening's produce. Derek Hedges had many interesting items on view. I saw Richard Howarth carrying off a bundle of newspapers, I found a Rotary postcard of H.M.S. Montague which came to grief in 1906 on the rocks of Lundy Island, a place I visited many times in my working days. I also found a set of Snap cards issued by Van Den Berghs Ltd and Blue Band margarine, which are listed in the trade index as Happy Families. I have reported these to the Cartophilic Society to check whether there are two issues or the noted title is incorrect.

If any other member has an interesting find it would be great to have it noted in the newsletter. I personally could list many each newsletter, but it would be good to hear of other member's finds. If you don't want to write anything just give me the card for illustration and I will comment on it.

I heard news on Thursday of the impending move of premises of our friends at SAS Auctions, who from October 1st will be based at 81, New Greenham Park, Newbury RG19 6HW tel: 08456 044 669. If you have never seen their catalogues, Gary Arkell will have copies with him this evening, October 14th, priced at £2.

Enjoy the rest of the year's meetings.

Mike Tubb

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Previous Newsletters(click to access) Hawkhurst Village Centena

Newsletter Summer 2010
	Newsletter Spring 2010
	Newsletter Winter 2009/10
	Newsletter Spring 2009

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