"I hope your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's"

The I-SPY books are spotters' guides written for British children, and particularly successful in the 1950s and 1960s in their original form and again when relaunched by Michelin in 2009 after a seven-year gap in publishing.
The I-SPY Tribe was based on the I-SPY Books, some forty small volumes that sold in hundreds of thousands. Each book covered a subject such as I-SPY Cars, I-SPY on the Pavement, I-SPY Churches, I-SPY on a Train Journey, etc. As children spotted objects such as coalhole covers, oak trees, semaphore signals, fire engines, whelks, and so on, they recorded the event in the relevant book, and gained points. Once the book was complete, it could be sent to Big Chief I-SPY for a feather and order of merit.

The company was supposedly run by a Red Indian chief called Big Chief I-Spy. The original Big Chief I-Spy was Charles Warrell, a former head master who created I-Spy towards the end of his working life. He retired in 1956, but lived on until 1995 when he died at the age of 106.[1] After Warrell's retirement his assistant Arnold Cawthrow became the second Big Chief, and served in this role until 1978. For part of this time he also worked as an antiques dealer in Islington. He died in 1993, and is commemorated by a stone plaque placed on the outside of the Boatmen's Rooms, the house where he spent some of his last years in Deal, Kent. Members of the I-Spy Tribe were called Redskins, and the head office was variously known as the Wigwam by the Water or the Wigwam-by-the-Green. The former was located for some years next to the Mermaid Theatre at Blackfriars, while the latter was in London's Edgware Road.

feather wrote: Brilliant, good old Johnnie.......

@ Thor

I assume that none of your family or loved ones contracted the plaque and expired, it must be some comfort to you now knowing that your rituals were effective.
They're fortunate to have you caring for them.













NURSE SHE'S OUT OF HER ROOM AGAIN!!!

swarfega!!

i used to have ispy books - loved them

long car journeys were measured in cassette tapes not miles - so a trip to london was a phil collins and one side of dire straits

trying to tape the top 40 off the radio

having to start the computer an hour before you actually wanted to use it

1/2 pennies and pound notes

knock down ginger, french skipping and caps you put in guns and bangers

making friendship bracelets and daisy chains

being kicked out of the brownies

choosing to go to sunday school

trying to tape the top 40 off the radio

Books - my childhood was spent surrounded by books.

grow your own food, diy, wisden cricket almanacs, delias complete guide to cookery, Guinness book of records, huge encyclopedias and history Britannica, green cloth bound books with gold gilt with detailed maps from across the world, books about space, dinosaurs, herbal medicine, gardening books, history books, Thousands and thousands of books, fiction, non fiction, An entire bookcase just for books about ww1 in particular the somerset light infantrys role in it.

When we were not voraciously reading we went out on magical mystery tours, we would all bundle into the ford cavalier )a hand me down from my uncle) and my sister and I would take it in turns to say whether we went left or right - and where ever we ended up we would go and visit, As an adult I now know that my parents had in mind somewhere to visit and we were 'guided' in our directions so we ended up there. if there was a museum, country house, castle or open space to visit within 60 miles we did so and mum would bring it alive with stories about its history,

Weekends always started with saturday morning kids tv, but the tv was handed over to dad the minute grandstand started. The rest of the day would be spent either baking, doing some sort of craft, reading or playing outside on the 'green' with the rest of the kids that lived on the close.

I just scanned this again and realized I'd typed plaque instead of plague.

Still, I'm glad none of Thor's relations died of plague or plaque.

One school summer hols - around 12yrs old, All my mates had turned on me for some reason & I was getting bullied. So I stayed in, found some old paints under the kitchen sink and painted a massive mural covering the whole of one of my bedroom walls. Amazing dinosoar scene. I was in heaven doing that. Still wonder if its still there, although its likely under wallpaper now.