This weeks additions..

[Archivist]

Recently, I posted a donation from Howard Wright, an Austin publication, 'Seeing Britain from an Austin' This reminded good friend of the Archive, Chris Garner, that he had a similar book in his collection, though this one was not just Britain, but also the Continent. The two books will live alongside one another at Lubenham...

   

And Ebay has provided an interesting book, 'Motors of Today' (Vol II) which gives details of many vehicles of the period (the book is probably dated around 1929?). Much of the material appears to have been gleaned from Handbooks, but it has 50 pages of details of how one should care for your car.. An nice little adddition for a tenner...

   

[JohnD]

I have a similar "Austin Touring" book, tho it has been vandalised by a sprog with a coloring pen!

I did think it would make a good Michael Portillo railway journeys type series - even if it was split up between member clubs into areas of the UK, each club or person take a chapter and writes a modern take on it for the Grey Mag - it can be a series over several editions.

[Archivist]

Austin also published a series of individual booklets. What I have not yet had the chance to do is to see whether the individual books are, in effect, republished in the hardback books. I recall that the indivdual books are more 'route' based than descriptive text, so may be quite different. If anyone wanted to follow one of those, I can provide details...

These books are quite small - only about 4" x 2 1/2" from memory...

Hugh

   

[Peter Naulls]

Fascinating stuff. I would be very interested to know if any of these publications cover the Scottish Highlands.

[Archivist]

The pocket books were my own small collection which now reside in the Archive. I'm not sure they included the Highlands, but I doubt they were anything like a complete set, so one may exist. I will publish a list of the ones we hold after my next visit and we will see if we can form a complete set.

However, the guide book from Chris Garner is still on my dining table and lo and behold...

   

   

[squeak]

I have the editions :
Scotland
Somerset
Devon and Cornwall
Hardy country, New Forest, Isle of Wight
Wales
Cotswolds
Thames Valley
took them with us on the Grand Tour for inspiration. Events overtook us sadly and we didn't use

[Frank Stoll]

Hello,
What do these booklets actually contain? Are these road maps and lists with Austin garages / service points? Are drivers taken on a "printed" tour through the various parts of the UK and introduced to the sights and their history? Recommendations for b&b, restaurants and hotels and do theses booklets always have the same structure? How many pages do they have?
Sorry but my interest for historic items takes over...
Kind regards

Frank

[Archivist]

Certainly some of those overlap the set I had, Russell, but I don't think I had Scotland...

I will be at the Archive in the next week or so, so will prepare a list of the ones we hold then and publish here...

Hugh

[Peter Naulls]

What a lovely description of the Highlands! I also like the artwork at the head of the chapter - a style I have seen in "The Austin" magazine and other publications of the time. The same artist perhaps, or just a popular theme at the time.

[Archivist]

Hello,
What do these booklets actually contain? Are these road maps and lists with Austin garages / service points? Are drivers taken on a "printed" tour through the various parts of the UK and introduced to the sights and their history? Recommendations for b&b, restaurants and hotels and do theses booklets always have the same structure? How many pages do they have?

Frank

Frank - the answer to many of your questions is 'Yes' but when I next go to the Archive I will bring one home to scan and post here in its entirety. However, there is no current plan to digitise them all for the Archive web site.