A photograph taken by Daniel Meadows at Workington v Doncaster Rovers, 26th October 1974

On this very day, 26th October, exactly 50 years ago photographer Daniel Meadows was at Borough Park to see Workington AFC v Doncaster Rovers. He took a picture of a young lad standing on the terraces between two older supporters. Above them sat five women, some elderly gentlemen, and a very young baby. I expect that this was taken at half-time given that no-one seems to be watching any action on the pitch.

                       

At this point in the season Workington had lost their previous three matches, and a 0-3 defeat to Doncaster would continue their pointless run. Just two seasons later, at the end of 1976/77, Workington lost their League status - and have yet to return.

The man wearing a white overcoat standing on the right side of the photo is reading the matchday programme. As is the man sitting above him. It's a 16 page issue for 5p, with 10 pages of adverts, and no photographs within. The only photograph is wrapped over the front and back covers. It depicts the first team squad, and is printed in light red behind the team line-ups which feature on the front cover. This was the format that was used throughout the 1974/75 season. 

                           

Daniel Meadows had embarked on his photographic journey the previous year. He travelled across the nation from September 1973 in a second hand double decker bus, part of which he'd converted into a darkroom. He dubbed the vehicle the 'Free Photographic Omnibus', with the plan to give away free copies of his hand printed photographs to the subjects. These were people doing everyday things up and down the country - like attending a football match on a Saturday afternoon. 

The Workington section came towards the end of Daniel's odyssey which wound up in the North West about a week after this photograph taken at Boundary Park. This image featured in the subsequent book called 'Living Like This' which was published by Arrow in 1975. It's a book that is now considered a classic in the field of documentary photography. In the subsequent years Daniel has been able to track down some of his subjects, though this group of football supporters have never been identified.  

The match day programme had proved elusive for some time, but I managed to track down a copy. The adverts evocatively capture a time in a place. Daniel's photograph asks the viewer many questions. Did the younger male fan know the two men either side of him? What was the chap on his right saying? And how come such a young baby was taken along to a football match on a chilly Autumn day?

Questions we may never find out, unless someone stumbles upon the photo who was either in it, or knows any of the people who were snapped on film as they attended a football match in Workington on 26th October 1974.

                              

 

Cambridge United v Oldham Athletic FA Cup 3rd Round 1973/74

 

50p for a programme in 1974? The answer is Yes, and also it's No.

This issue of Cambridge United's 'Black & Amber' was 40p more than the regular 10p price tag. That's because the purchase of this special 'Official Match Magazine' doubled up as the cost of admission into the Abbey Stadium for the FA Cup 3rd Round tie versus Oldham Athletic on 6th January 1974. This match just happened to be the very first official fixture to be played on a Sunday as it kicked off at 11.30am, several hours before the other cup ties set to be played on this historic Sunday fifty years ago. 

The reason was because of the energy crisis, fuel shortages and the Three Day Week, it was decided that it would be too costly to plug a football ground into the grid on a busy Saturday. So some fixtures were rearranged for the Sunday when there was likely to be a more guaranteed supply of electricity. The morning kick off also meant that costly floodlights certainly needn't be turned on.

So the trusty matchday programme was a way of getting round the strict Sunday Observance laws dating back to the 18th century that prohibited an admission charge to paying events on the Sabbath. Entry into the ground was the purchase of a programme, rather than buying a ticket or handing over cash at the door.

Hence that 50p overprint in thick black ink...

Front cover of this historic programme

There were also other price variations on the day to get through the turnstiles. Another version of the above programme was printed without the orange ink on the cover, and priced 30p, and this yellow Official Team Sheet cost 45p

This hastily produced team sheet has the updated line-ups for both teams 

The fixtures list inside the programme confirms that this Cup Tie was originally to be played on Saturday 5th January 1974 

The match itself ended in a 2-2 draw played in front of  8,479 spectators. The replay took place two days later on 8th January at Oldham's Boundary Park ground. As there was no time to write and publish a programme, only a team sheet was produced by the club. The game itself sounded like a classic cup tie, ending in a 3-3 draw watched by 10,250 fans. So that meant another replay...

Oldham Athletic v Cambridge United, 8/1/74

The second replay was scheduled for the following Monday, on 14th January 1974. A neutral venue was secured, so the two teams lined-up again at the City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest. There was only an Official Team Sheet that was produced for this F A Cup 3rd Round 2nd Replay. The 1.30pm kick off meant that only 3,563 people showed up. So many fans couldn't get time off work, and of course it was a school day meaning only a few and the brave of the United and Athletic young fan base were prepared to bunk off and find their way to Nottingham. 

Forest did get to show off their then new logo on this very scarce 'programme'

No further replays were needed as Oldham Athletic eventually won the tie 2-1. In the end, what will be forever historically significant about this 3rd Round FA Cup tie is that two teams from the then Third Division unknowingly triggered a change in the way fans attend football matches. That Sunday 6th January 1974 is half a century ago. Nowadays, watching football on a Sunday is merely just a typical day in our spectating schedule. But next time you go to a match on a Sunday, think of what it must have been like turning up to a professional football match on the one day you could never have attended one before...

Chelsea v Arsenal, Christmas Day 1956

Welcome back to the latest instalment of my now very occasional blog 'After You've Gone', and the ongoing seasonal exploration of football programmes for matches played over Christmas. This time we have a First Division encounter between Chelsea and Arsenal on Christmas Day 1956 at Stamford Bridge. The return match, which traditionally took place about twenty four hours later, was at Arsenal's Highbury stadium on Boxing Day.

Note that this London Derby was played on a Tuesday, offering fans an opportunity to watch football on both weekdays of the two-day Christmas Public Holiday. However, in the utterly male-serving tradition that had been played out since the Victorian era, the Christmas Day fixtures usually kicked-off at 11am. A time that meant the men could return home after the game to their Xmas Day lunch table that had most likely been prepared by their wives, mothers or sisters. 

 

The Chelsea programme had retained the same format for their past three seasons. A blue and white cover with an overhead illustration of the pitch and the ground's extensive terracing. The publication was sixteen pages thick, and just like Arsenal's match day programme, it contained no external advertising. 

the centrespread complete with a nice example of rusty staples

A highlight of this Christmas Day programme is this delightful 'Seasonal Greetings' illustration by Mickey Durling in the centrespread. It depicts the Chelsea first team players, Manager Ted Drake, as well as their coach and trainer. Durling's cartoons were a regular feature of the sports press in the 1950s, and he's clearly enjoying himself in the Christmas spirit. Two players are decorating the Christmas Tree, outside right Peter Bradbrook is shown carrying a turkey, and there are two players pushing right back Peter MacFarlane on his sled. 

The Line Ups Xmas Day, 1956

"It isn't good counting the chickens" from the programme's regular column 'This and That', 

,

Chelsea's December Fixtures, 1956/57

For the record, Chelsea v Arsenal on Christmas Day 1956 ended up as a 1-1 draw, played in front of 32,094 spectators. It would be so interesting to know how many female fans were at this match, and not back home, getting Xmas lunch ready for the returning men. Something of course we will never be able to find out...

What we do know is that this programme marks the final season when a full set of First Division fixtures were played on Christmas Day. In fact for Arsenal, this was to be their last ever match scheduled on a Christmas Day. However, the following season 1957/58, Chelsea were at home again on 25th December, and then on Christmas Day 1958, they won their last ever Xmas Day match three-nil away at Blackburn Rovers.

          'SEASONAL GREETINGS' from AFTER YOU'VE GONE

A Chequerboard Classic: the Queens Park Rangers matchday programme 1967 to 1977

–  the inside story of QPR’s multi-award winner of the 1960s & 70s

"I’m delighted to hear from you, particularly when you are talking about my favourite subject - the QPR programme” – and so began a fascinating series of conversations with Paddington-born Ron Phillips, the former Secretary of Queens Park Rangers FC, and editor of the club’s matchday programme. For it was Ron who was responsible in transforming what had previously resembled a team sheet for a school’s football tournament into a multi-award winning matchday publication. And what’s more, the chequerboard cover design, with its everchanging palette of dayglo colours made QPR’s programme the most recognisable in British football for ten straight years.

In fact, the task of editing the club programme was not what Ron had in mind at all when he was appointed as QPR’s new club secretary in the Autumn of 1966. He’d just left the 10^th Royal Hussars cavalry regiment after fifteen years of service on the Monday, spotted the job in a 2” square advert in the Daily Telegraph the following day, and on Friday morning Ron was interviewed and began work the very same day - even though he had made it clear that he’d never attended a football match. What followed was an extraordinary 23 years for Ron at the club whose on-field exploits included winning the very first League Cup Final to be played at Wembley (and as a Third Division team), a meteoric rise to the top flight, European football, and that 1975-76 season when QPR were pipped by just one point by Liverpool as Division 1 champions. But on the whole, my communications with Ron by email and phone focussed on his most beloved project – the official programme of Queens Park Rangers.

 QPR v Oxford Utd 1966/67. Ron Phillips on the cover in his first season as QPRs club secretary

I wanted to track Ron down as I’d just co-written ‘1 Shilling – The Football Programme Design Revolution of 1965-85’, a book where graphic designer Matt Caldwell and myself interviewed the designers about their work on some of our favourite football programmes of that period. It was the time just before high-res photography and Apple Macs took over from a super-creative period of hand-crafted illustrations, layouts and exciting cover design. We are both massive fans of QPR’s chequerboard cover, and needed to know exactly who had dreamt it up. Well, Ron Phillips wasn’t an illustrator. He had held a Regular Commission in the British Army, a large part of which was spent as Major and Paymaster to the 10th Royal Hussars. But one of his tasks was to run the quarterly regimental journal issued free to everyone in the barracks. In Ron’s words “Yes, it was ruddy boring but I couldn't play around with it too much as the Queen was on the subscription list. However, I brightened it up with a cover which you would have recognised as the forerunner to that belonging to a certain football club”. An image was forming in Ron’s mind for this next generation QPR programme, first though, he had to convince the Chairman that the current League Cup holders and Third Division Champions should be represented by a football programme that is rather more ambitious than a folded sheet of A4 paper. Jim Gregory was tough and streetwise, a self-made man who had started his working life selling fish from a barrow in nearby Shepherd’s Bush Market, and who would go on to make his fortune from selling cars and car dealerships. But Gregory famously “refused to spend a penny on anything which didn't produce an immediate profit” So, what happened next?

“The Chairman forbade me to alter the programme in any way and, if I did and it lost money, the loss would come out of my salary. I set to work immediately to transform it. I gave the design to our printers, T.W. Pegg & Sons based in Ellerslie Road, Fulham. I asked for a chequerboard cover, alternating black and white squares, with little stick figures of footballers centred in some of the white squares.  You have seen what they produced.  I could never have done that in a lifetime”.

Ron’s draft of ‘black and white squares’ was brilliantly conjured up by Pegg’s. It was the Swinging 60’s after all, a point in time when the high streets of London were awash in bright colours. For every game they would print the non-white squares in a different colour. So, I wonder, would each colour represent the kit of your opponents? “Ye Gods, no!  My job was to make the visiting team as uncomfortable as possible. So always the 'wrong' colour!” The chequerboard cover was inhabited by smaller than postage stamp-sized stick figures of football players in action: kicking, dribbling, heading, diving and catching. Beautifully rendered by an artist at Pegg’s. Sadly, Ron cannot recall who he was, and his work was never specifically credited.  This is another not unfamiliar story of so many people involved in the creation of matchday publications of the past – again that’s something we wanted to redress in our book.

However, one aspect of the front cover would start a controversy that continues to rage over half a century on. Ron asked for each of the letters making up QUEEN'S PARK RANGERS to be placed into the squares in the central upper section of the design. Pegg’s produced a mock-up which worked perfectly but with one exception. The apostrophe between the N and the S of QUEEN’S whether it was inserted between the letters, or put into its own square, just didn’t look right aesthetically. So, Ron made the decision which in his words “launched a thousand letters of incomprehension”. He told Pegg’s to drop the apostrophe completely. “They did so, pale and horrified, but the cover design was now perfect”.

QPR v Burnley 31st Oct 1967. QPRs very first chequerboard cover

Ron Phillips chose a League Cup 4th Round match versus Burnley on 31^st October 1967 to launch the chequerboard programme, bearing the club’s new name – Queens Park Rangers. The plan was that as it was a midweek match it would slip under the chairman’s radar. The price was now 9d, a 3d rise on QPR’s rudimentary sixpenny football programme that had returned for the start of the 1967/68 season. By December 1967, the programme now cost 1/-, reflecting the increased page count. After half a dozen issues, Pegg’s initial Queens Park Rangers lettering was changed from white letters with a drawn outline where each letter took up an entire square, to a smaller font printed in black with the coloured squares now removed from under all the letters. Ironically this new layout would have been visually kinder to an apostrophe, but it had already been expunged - as it has been to this very day…

Up to this point, Ron Phillips was the Club Secretary – dealing with all the day-to-day finances doesn’t come close to describing what his post entailed - and programme editor was certainly not in the job remit. But he wanted to give the fans a publication that reflected their team’s success on the pitch, and which could make the kind of profit that would convince the Chairman to support his vision. Phillips took control of the programme, honing its pages to reflect his mission to communicate personally with the fans, and giving them a space to share their voices with the club. During the 1967/8 season, Ron began the ‘Ranger to Ranger’ letters column which he says was “dear to my heart”. The page was decorated with a delightful illustration by Alfred Hackett of a fan in his hooped top connected by a long telephone cord to the programme editor. The column’s ethos was “If there’s anything you want to get off your chest, now is the chance”, and the supporters certainly took the opportunity to put pen to paper…

QPR v Hull City 1967/68. The redesigned QPR lettering.

Phillips himself wrote the new editorial for each match. It was first dubbed ‘Bush News’ which soon became ‘Bush Telegraph’, and besides his pithy accounts of previous matches or wider footballing issues, it was a showcase for Ron’s literary passions. He would quote Thomas Paine “These are the times that try men’s souls” when responding to the press criticising the club – or offer up some Kipling: “If you can lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss” for a first editorial of the season having been relegated the previous season. And then there was ‘Post Mortem’, the page that listed the facts on recent games. The opponents, the ground, the attendance, the line-ups, the score, and what the press said. It was a good title according to Phillips, but an elderly Director felt the name was too close to the bone so he reluctantly had to change ‘Post Mortem’ to ‘It’s a Record’. Another addition to the new programme was the woman’s page ‘Let a Lady Speak’, where wives of the club’s directors or players offer their tips from everything from slimming and cleaning grass stains out of white shorts, to the tale about how a woman who accompanied her husband to matches stopped him getting into trouble, and recommended more wives do the same. Ron also reminded me that one of his favourite contributions was a QPR crossword in which most of the clues were linked to Rangers. Q. Opposing skipper's instructions to his team before the game (4-7) A. Mark Lazarus

the 'Ranger to Ranger' column

the short-lived POSTMORTEM title for the vital facts on recent games column

At the end of the 1967/68 season, Ron Phillips went to see the Chairman in his office at Roehampton to suggest that the club should put out the redesigned programme for the start of the new season. Jim Gregory refused to discuss it, saying it would lose the club money. But 1968/69 was QPR’s very first season in the top flight. Ron Phillips issued his 1/- programme complete with a cast of contributors that included John Brough’s superb photography (with some images even printed in colour), Derek Buxton’s statistics, Tony Pullein’s articles and cartoons by the great Bill Tidy.

“I was immediately fired but I ignored this (after all, it was the fifth time I had been dismissed and, to put this in context, Jim Gregory fired 18 Managers while I was with him) and I soldiered on until the end of the season. I then forwarded a Profit and Loss Account to the Chairman.  I made no comment on what had been a horrific season financially.  The only bright spot was that programme sales had brought in a profit of £1,100 which was equivalent to nearly 25% of that season's gate takings. And, more pleasing to me than the increased takings was the fact that we won the award for Best Programme In The Football League!”

QPR v Middlesbrough 1969/70 with programme award winner rosette

Hence the following season, 1969/70, the programme covers proudly wore a rosette that celebrated the Football League Review’s ‘Best Programme in the League’ award (there were more awards to come in subsequent years). Ironically, Phillips had been frustrated by the waste caused by discarded copies of the FLR that had slipped out of the Rangers programmes. It didn’t help that the publication was “merely a propaganda instrument of the Football League” according to Phillips. At the end of the previous season he had conducted a poll of QPR fans about keeping the FLR in their 1/- programme, and in accordance with the fans wishes, from August 1969, supporters who didn’t want to read the FLR queued up at programme sellers wearing a blue uniform. Anyone wanting a copy of the FLR would have to pay 1s 3d for a programme that included the magazine, and these could only be bought from programme sellers on each side of the ground who were dressed in white. It was a set-up that continued for several more years. Of special note at this point, it is important to stress that photographs of programme sellers from the 1960s and 1970s are almost impossible to find. Coincidentally though, while researching our book we discovered that a photo does exist. It was taken outside Loftus Road in September 1976 at a First Division match versus Aston Villa, and shows a programme seller at work, wearing an official cap and what looks like a milkman’s uniform with a leather pouch slung across his shoulder for his takings. It feels appropriate that such a rare image depicts an example of Ron Phillips’s pride and joy, and in its final season before the chequerboard cover gave way to a new era of programme design dominated by colour photography.

QPR v Leeds 24th April 1976. Rangers qualified for Europe and Ron Phillips asked Peggs the printers to create a special cover featuring the flags of European nations

By the way, another of Ron’s favourite ever programme covers was based on an idea he gave Pegg’s the printers when QPR had already mathematically qualified for Europe. Instead of the classic chequerboard, Ron asked Pegg’s to print the flags of the European nations on the cover for the match versus Leeds United on 24^th April 1976. In addition, the printers added three special edition rosettes, as not only had Rangers qualified for Europe for the first time, but in 1975/76 the QPR programme was again voted ‘Best in the Football League’. Rangers beat Leeds 2-0 that day but still missed out on the First Division trophy to Liverpool who had also won their final match of the season. Second place meant that it would be UEFA Cup football rather than the European Cup in the following season.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, it’s the QPR programme that is centre stage, especially the chequerboard era. Ron Phillips was Secretary of QPR between 1966 and 1989, a dramatic period of highs and lows for the club where fans also witnessed many exceptional players. His personal favourite was Stan Bowles, and having read Ron’s memoirs of his time at QPR, he was kept well on his toes by Stan’s extra-curricular activities. Ron left football for good to move on to fulfil a dream – to run his own theatre. He started Barons Court Theatre in London W14, and was its artistic director until he retired at the age of 88 in 2021. To this day Ron Phillips still receives fan mail about his stint on the QPR programme. Though he did recently get a letter from a Rangers fan in New Zealand who is still irate about that expunged apostrophe…

Alan Dein, 8^th January, 2023

For more details about Alan & Matt’s book 1 Shilling - Football Programme Design Revolution of 1965-85, please check: Instagram: @1_shilling

 

QPR v Aston Villa 11th Sept 1976 as seen in that super-rare photograph of a 1970s programme seller

Sadly, Ron Phillips passed away in April 2023. Please take a look at this tribute to his remarkable career at Queens Park Rangers:  https://www.qpr.co.uk/news/club-news/ron-phillips-tribute-210423/

Sheffield United v Blackpool, Boxing Day 1961

Welcome to my regular seasonal post of 'After You've Gone' my now very irregular blog. Apologies if you used to enjoy seeing these pop up on a regular basis. One of my distractions over the past few years has been Instagram, where it is has been so easy to upload images and connect with friends and followers, so inevitably that has meant less and less of 'After You've Gone'. 

My Winter wishes this year are courtesy of a lovely football programme that was issued for a First Division match at Bramall Lane on 26th December 1961. Throughout the 1961/62 Season, Sheffield United produced a splendid looking publication with a crowd scene that evocatively captures football going in this era. 

I really like the artist's angle of being in the crowd viewing both fellow spectators in the stand and the action on the pitch. I'm sure that L.S.Lowry would have recognised the imagery - though sadly like many football programme designers, the cover illustration is not credited. 

The unknown artist would have certainly enjoyed this particular festive issue as the printers - Greenup & Thompson of Wellington Street, Sheffield - went for green ink instead of the regular black that was used to accompany the red print throughout the 1961/2 season. No expenses spared for Blades and Blackpool fans on this Boxing Day!

For the record, Sheffield United won the match 2-1, ending the season in 5th place, which was also one above their City rivals Sheffield Wednesday. The 1961/62 programme crowd scene cover was issued for only this one season, but it remains an enduringly popular design for fans of football programmes of this era. 

For anyone stumbling upon this post for the first time, please do check out '1/- The Football Programme Design Revolution 1965-85' that I co-wrote with graphic designer Matt Caldwell. Further information is at the bottom of this page. Now let's savour these cracking images...

The Red & Green special Boxing Day cover

Wardonia, Steel City

The Line Ups!

Tennant's Barley Wine, a welcome tonic after freezing on the terraces at a Christmas match

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Book details: https://1-shilling.myshopify.com/

1 Shilling: The football programme design revolution of 1965-85

Hello! 

This post of 'After You've Gone' is a tie-in with KICKSTARTER for a book that I've been working on with graphic designer Matt Caldwell:

1 Shilling: The football programme design revolution of 1965-85

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1shilling/1-shilling-the-book

The book breaks new ground as it digs deep into the rich history of an astonishing era of football programme design, uncovering the stories of their remarkable creators. It features stunning cover designs from more than 40 British Football League clubs - a visual treat transporting us back to a time when a new generation of designers had burst on the scene fresh out of art school and off the football terraces... 

A selection of spreads from the book.

1 Shilling has tracked down these long-forgotten paradigm shifters, so for the first time we hear their story, both in their own words and through interviews with their families and colleagues. It’s a tale of passionate football fans designing for fellow supporters - but unlike the fashion or music industries - the names behind the artworks for the trusty, pocket-money priced, football programme were often uncredited or ignored. Until now. 1 Shilling champions these unheralded artists, finally cementing their deserved place in design history.

Cover and spine view of the book.

Spread across 200 pages, 20,000 words, 100 images and 11 chapters, 1 Shilling takes you on a nostalgic journey into the archives of football programme design. At its heart, the book is a deep exploration of the work of master creator John Elvin, a designer who broke all the rules. Ignoring the conventions of the day, he chopped up photos, massacred the formal code of lay-outs and blew-up typefaces beyond the imaginable.

Limited Edition A2 Poster - Coventry City vs Bayern Munich, 1970 (designed by the late John Elvin, and signed by his son). Included in selected pledges.

We meet a geezer from West Bromwich called Graham who designed programmes for several First Division clubs (in the same season), while high as a kite on a combo of lighter fuel and magic markers. Then there’s John Elvin’s protégé, Bernard from Birmingham, a prolific powerhouse of dynamic design in the Midlands. And also Don, an art school teacher from Aberdeen who conjured-up fantastical images for a few shillings’ worth of beer money.

In a collection of essays, 1 Shilling explores the wider cultural, economic and political backstory of British football over a transformative two decades from the mid-1960s. The book gets to the core of the ritual which saw fans buying programmes that were read at the match, in the pub, at home - and often treasured for years and years.

1 Shilling postcards - one design included with every pledge.

Our objective  is that following printing and distribution, a significant donation will be made to the Huntington's Disease Association (HDA), a national charity supporting anyone who is affected by Huntington’s Disease. It was Huntington’s Disease that claimed the life of pioneer programme designer John Elvin at the age of just 53.

Huntington’s is not something you can catch: it is inherited. Every child conceived naturally to a parent who carries the Huntington’s gene has a 50% chance of inheriting it. You can live with the faulty gene for years without symptoms, but eventually it will impact on your life, manifesting as changes with movement, learning, thinking and emotions. Once symptoms begin, the disease will always progress: there is currently NO cure.

As an organisation boasting many committed football fans, the HDA were intrigued to hear about the 1Shilling project and the story John Elvin, especially when they learnt how Huntington’s Disease took the life of John at a young age.

All profits from this project go to the Huntington's Disease Association.

The funding that we generate through this Kickstarter will be for the printing and distribution of the book. All profits will be donated to the Huntington's Disease Association.

We have already factored in a budget that will enable us to print 500 copies, although we’d love to raise enough to print a few more, so reducing the unit price for printing - and maximising the surplus which will all go to charity.

Remaining copies will be sold & distributed through online and physical retailers.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

A letter from Argentina to Laurence Harvey, 1957

On Sunday afternoon, I dropped in to the Business Design Centre in Islington, N1 to have a look around the London International Stamp Exhibition 2022. I took some time to view the various philatelic exhibitions on display, and had a rummage through the hundreds of thousands of postage covers that were sold in the dealer's areas. I was hoping to find some interesting items relating to my ongoing exploration into public telephone boxes - or perhaps any ancient fragments of ephemera connected to advertising gramophone companies and recordings.

By sheer chance, I spotted an envelope addressed to the actor Laurence Harvey, perhaps best known for his performance as the aspirational womaniser Joe Lampton in the 1959 film adaptation of John Braine's 'Room at the Top', or the hypnotised Communist spy in John Frankenheimer's 'The Manchurian Candidate'. Sadly the letter itself was not enclosed, but they rarely are in these kinds of philatelic artefacts. But I couldn't resist buying the cover, especially as the asking price was a mere £2.

The letter had originally been sent from Argentina on the 28th May 1957 at a cost of 3 pesos, and on the reverse there is a another post mark. A cancellation dated 10th July 1957 showing that the letter had taken over two months to reach the corrected address for Laurence Harvey - c/o Romulus Films in Soho Sq, W1 - the company founded by the Eton-educated brothers John and James Woolf.

the flimsy 17 x 9.5 cms Air Mail envelope

The year 1957 was certainly a busy one for Harvey. He had two starring roles in British films - in the comedy drama 'The Truth About Women', and  'After The Ball' the biography of Music Hall performer Vesta Tilley.

Julie Harris and Laurence Harvey in 'The Truth About Women'

 'After the Ball' was filmed at Beaconsfield Studios for Romulus Films

The 9th World Scout Jamboree was held in Sutton Coldfield in 1957. It was dubbed the Jubilee Jamboree marking the 50th anniversary of the Scouting Movement, and the 100th anniversary of the birth of founder Robert Baden-Powell. 

We can never know what exactly were the written contents of the letter to Laurence Harvey sent from Argentina in 1957. However the name and address of the sender is on the back of the envelope: R. Mendez, Moreno 215, Quilmes, Buenos Aires. More than likely this is a fan letter to Harvey, written from a country that was in the midst of a series of coups in the fifties, and perhaps one of many dozens a week that he would have received at this time. Somehow the envelope found its way onto the philatelic market, sitting in collections for decades, and then boxed up to be taken to various stamp fairs until ending up in the hands of another buyer - this time me...

And here is Moreno 215, Quilmes, Bs As in 2021, courtesy of Street View

Little did Laurence Harvey know in 1957 that his career would soon take a major upturn after the huge public and critical success of 'Room at the Top', just two years after this letter was sent from Argentina. 

Harvey continued to star in films and television up to his death from cancer in London, at the age of 45 in 1973.