1940S

[English Social History: A working-class London cinema-goer.] Two exercise books, filled with 385 manuscript entries by ‘Miss Renee Fish’ of Catford, detailing ‘Films I have seen’, between 1930 and 1934, and 1939 and 1943, at various London cinemas.

Author: 
[English Social History: A working-class London cinema-goer in the 1930s and 1940s; the movies; the pictures; the flicks]
Publication details: 
‘Miss Renee Fish, / 112, Allerford Road / Catford, / S.E.6. [London]’ First exercise book: 272 entries between 3 January 1930 and 27 October 1934. Second exercise book: 113 entries between 12 June 1939 and 20 March 1943.
£450.00

An interesting agglomeration of ephemera London cinematic information. The author is working-class or lower-middle-class. Two sturdy ruled small 4to exercise books, with black covers of ribbed watered cloth and spine of red cloth. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. ONE: 150pp. Ownership inscription on inside of front cover: ‘Miss Renee Fish, / 112, Allerford Road / Catford, / S.E.6.’ The first page is headed: ‘31. 12. 29. Films I have seen during 1930.’ Each of the volume’ The entries are numbered from 1 to 272, with an additional numeration for each year from the second year onwards.

[Jeypoor Treasury, Jaipur Government, India (now in Rajasthan State).] Eleven manuscript documents in Hindi script, each with the large seal of the Jaipur Government, and eight each with a Jaipur State 4 Annas stamp and one with an 8 Annas stamp.

Author: 
Jaipur Government, India [since 1949 part of Rajasthan State], Jeypoor Treasury
Publication details: 
[1940s.] Jaipur Government [Rajasthan State], India. (Each of the documents with large printed design of the ‘Revenue Stamp Jaipur Government’, and two with additional ink stamp of ‘RAJASTHAN STATE’.)
£450.00

Eleven documents, all foolscap, possibly relating to property. The tax stamps carried by nine of the items, and presence on the two others of a Rajasthan State stamp suggest that they date from the early years of Indian independence. Nine are bifoliums, each with punch-holed large blue oval design of the ‘Court Fee Stamp / Jaipur Government / Four Annas’ taking up much of the upper part of the recto of the first page. These documents are also blind stamped, upside down on the reverse of the second leaf, with an oval ‘Four Annas’ stamp of the ‘Jeypoor Treasury’.

[Mabel Constandurous, star and writer of BBC radio series ‘The Buggins Family’.] Two Autograph Letters Signed to her agent ‘Miss Booth', discussing the success of her radio work, a fan letter from Compton Mackenzie, future engagements.

Author: 
Mabel Constanduros [Mabel Tilling] (1880-1957), commedienne and playwright, who wrote and starred in the BBC radio series ‘The Buggins Family’
Publication details: 
Neither item dated (but both after 1928). The first without place, the second on letterhead of Belhaven, Cornwall Road, Sutton.
£180.00

According to Barry Took’s entry on Constanduros in the Oxford DNB, ‘The Buggins Family’ was ‘the first radio family’, and she played all six parts, writing and performing in more than 250 episodes between and 1928 and 1948: ‘The popularity of the family was such that the Ministry of Food used Mrs Buggins to broadcast recipes during the Second World War.’Constanduros is also credited with having written more than one hundred plays. The recipient of these two letters, 'Miss Booth', is clearly her agent. Two items, the first in good condition and the second fair, on lightly discoloured paper.

Mimeographed Sussex Police Force document from 1945, giving new 'going-off points' on 29 beats within No. 3 District in Brighton, together with six more mimeographed documents, titles including 'Arrest Without Warrant' and 'Identification Methods'.

Author: 
[Sussex Police Force, 1940s procedural notices] [British policing; law enforcement]
Mimeographed Sussex Police Force document from 1945
Publication details: 
Documents dated 1945 and 1947. [Sussex Police Force, Brighton.]
£125.00
Mimeographed Sussex Police Force document from 1945

Seven documents, all in folio, a total of fifteen pages. Texts clear and complete. Good, on aged paper, with one document with rusted staple. All are police circulars, but only the first is clearly specific to Brighton. ONE: 'Police Box System - Going-off Points'. 3 pp. Short introduction, followed by a list of points to be deleted, and their substitutes. TWO: 'No. 6 District Police Training Centre, Larceny Act, 1916'. 1 p. Table giving 'Time', 'Place', 'Manner' and 'Intent' for four offences from Sacrilege to Housebreaking with Intent.

[Manuscript notebook of an anonymous English plane spotter, containing detailed entries of planes coming in to various airports in southern England between 1947 and 1950. In notebook containing publicity material for the Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd.]

Author: 
[British plane spotting in the 1940s; Ingersoll-Rand Co. (air compressors and pneumatic tools)]
British plane spotting in the 1940s
Publication details: 
Compiled between 1947 and 1950. [Ingersoll-Rand Co., Limited, 165, Queen Victoria St., London, E.C.4]
£450.00
British plane spotting in the 1940s

12mo, 133 pp. Hundreds of neat entries, in a small hand, written lengthwise on graph-paper pages in a red-cloth 'Memoranda' book ('Compliments of Ingersoll-Rand Co., Limited, 165, Queen Victoria St., London, E.C.4.'). Good: with text clear and complete on lightly-aged paper, in the original worn red binding. Many entries are dated (with a few also giving the dates on which various planes crashed), and among the airports referred to are Northolt, Yeovil, Radlett, Cowes, Rochester, Guernsey, Jersey, Peterborough, White Waltham, Hanworth Park, Elstree, Cranfield, Luton.

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