Ace Jet 170

The Past

  

You'll have to excuse this highly personal post. It's not personal in an embarrassing kind of way; I'm not going to tell you anything gruesome that you'll wish I hadn't mentioned. It's just it's about stuff that means a lot to me but probably nothing to you. You see, I found this booklet recently. It was to do with maps and I haven't found anything really interesting map-wise for a while and that bit of Helvetica looked really good, tightly set and I liked the line. It's a recruitment booklet from 1968; the Civil Service were looking for cartographic professionals.

I didn't notice the details, just enough to make me buy it (it was on ebay...so all I saw was a thumbnail). Later though, when it arrived and I could look at it properly I was extremely surprised to see that the map used for the cover showed the village where we used to live: Rothley. That's where we lived just before moving to NI. On closer examination, the map, which as you can see wraps over to the back, prompted lots of strong and timely memories.

We lived at the northern edge of the village, just up that road there. Over to the western edge is the really great Great Central Railway (just past where we had our wedding reception). Into the centre of the village and that's where the chip shop is (great chips!) and there's the church we got married in. A little bit further across and that's where Pezza has his studio. A mile or so onto the back cover and that's Swithland, where we saw all those enormous vegetables (huge onions, the size of your head!). And Cropston is kind of south west of Rothley and where we would grab a pub lunch during our "courting" days (and where the crippled children used to go for their holidays). Then there's the woods that were ace for a Sunday afternoon walk and Woodhouse Eves, where the posh people live.

We're heading back there in a few weeks and are planning to hook up with old friends we haven't seen for years. It's going to be brilliant, can't wait and seeing all this has made it all the more vivid and exciting.

      

I'm not sure quite why this particular snippet of map was chosen for the cover. I thought that perhaps it was where their offices were but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. Then I thought that perhaps Rothley was the most central point in England, but it's not. It's not far off but it's far enough off to dismiss that theory. Who knows?

 

It's incidental but inside was a folded slip of paper which outlines prospective salaries for the positions they were looking to fill. Makes interesting reading.

A Coordinated Greeting

Finally found a use for those Michelin maps I bought earlier in the year. They're French so it seemed only right that the greeting should by like-wise. Have a great Christmas everyone! See you in the new year.

 

Map Making c1953

Flagrantly stolen from I Like. (Hope that's OK Anne).

Beaucoup de Bibendum

 

There hasn't been much map-action lately. But a while back I found a whole pile to Michelin maps in a charity bookshop, going for a song, so I snapped them up. If nothing else, I thought I could use them as wrapping paper.

Haven't been able to bring myself to do that yet.

 

 

 

  

Blake's Six

Does anyone know who illustrated these covers? They're signed "Blake" but interweb research has drawn a big fat nothing, or rather, nothing but a slightly stoat William and the fact that he did a bit of illustration too just doesn't help, even though he was well dead by the time Esso commissioned these.

King Edward VII Land and other holiday destinations

While I was off work last week my parents were over from the mainland so we all went to the Ulster Folk Museum for a day. It's a great place, I've mentioned before, and everyone enjoyed it. Just as we were polishing off our picnic lunch my oldest boy asked if he could go and play in the coal yard. Despite images of a returning blackened child, we let him go.

A few minutes later I thought I'd better check to make sure he hadn't fallen fowl of any of the numerous hazards; I know, I thought, I'll sneak through the coal yard office and scare the b'jesus out of him (as the locals say). But, creeping in, I was greeted by a warming sight: there he was, at the desk, leafing through this lovely vintage atlas. That's me' boy.

Apparently, he was deciding where we were going to go on holiday. Somewhere off the coast of the Antarctic it is then.

(Took the opportunity to extend my UFM Flickr set too.)

Caltexaco?

Here's another one from Nick's box.

Map aside, it's interesting (well, for about 2 minutes) that the Caltex brand looked remarkably like another but a little digging reveals that it still does because they're both offspring of the same hermaphrodite parent Chevron. It's all explained here.

Thanks go to the man with the box.

Don't mention the...

Here's another specimen from Nick's bumper box of maps etc (one day, he might get it back).

Nowhere near as glamorous as the previous example it's printed on really awful paper. Dated 1943, the general poor quality of the material and print make this a strangely interesting piece of work.

A few words about emergency exits

Found this recently (on ebay for a couple of quid) and thought it might reveal an interesting map.

It didn't...well not that interesting.

Still, it doesn't matter because it has other things going for it to compensate. Specifically, and discovered to my great (if sad) delight: the sloping 'tab' system designed to help you identify which quarter of North America you want to look at. It's dead simple of course; the one edge is cut at a slight angle so when it's folded, map-stylee, it creates zip-zagging coloured strips that correspond to the colours in that diagram.

Trust your car to the man who wears the star

Nicklas has kindly lent me his bumper box of maps etc. There's lots of interesting things inside.

A major highlight being this 1965 map of New York and specifically the 1964/65 World's Fair. Published by Rand McNally & Company and sponsored by Texaco.