Welcome to my blog, where I take pleasure in words and pictures, be they my own or those of others. I'm a creative individual, and the crafty side I explore on my 'other blog', Picking Up The Threads, which I hope you'll visit too. I'm sure you understand that I have sole copyright of my original work and any of my contributions, so please ask if you want to use them. A polite request is rarely refused. So, as they used to say on the BBC's 'Listen With Mother' radio programme, many years ago: "Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin."

Friday 13 May 2011

Flights of Fancy

This cover of Punch magazine issue 3-9 March 1971, is one of my prized possessions. The magazine was issued the week before Prince Charles started his training at RAF College Cranwell. I was at teacher training college in Lincoln at the time. My college was all female students until the year before my entry so we often linked up with Cranwell for Summer Balls at our college or theirs. Some lasting partnerships were formed - and many hearts were broken. We girls all rushed out to get a copy of this issue of Punch, as we knew it would be a great souvenir. At the time I was dating a cadet entry student at Cranwell, so the nearest I came to HRH was at a disco in College Hall Mess.

The magazine was full of brilliant and witty pieces by the likes of Alan Coren et al, and reading through it now still makes me laugh. There were also some wonderful cartoons, as you would expect of Punch.



Sepia Saturday this week has a potential theme of flying contraptions, newspapers or silly hats. Well Prince Charles is a sort of flying machine on the cover, Punch is a periodical, if not a newspaper, and as for silly hats see above. And the young student pilot I was dating?  Broken hearts I’m afraid, but a couple of years later I met a gorgeous graduate entry student engineering officer, my heart was healed and ....reader I married him! 

18 comments:

  1. It looks like you have kept this in good condition too. What a fun collectible. I'm very impressed that you hit every possible theme too!

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  2. Thanks for the memories, Nell.

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  3. Forty years later, he is still the next king.

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  4. Glad it all worked out with the engineering student. I think your photos went with the theme splendidly!

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  5. What a large chunk of your personal history you managed to cram into a small post! Prince Charles is still very recognisable isn't he? A caricature artist's dream! So glad there was a happy ending for you!

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  6. "The Next King Charles" will probably not be this Charles. I'm always astounded to think that he has prepared all his life for a job he'll probably never get. There's an emptiness to all of it.

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  7. Glad it all worked out well for you, in the end. Perhaps it has for Charlie, too?

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  8. And his ears are still just as big!

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  9. Congratulations on covering the whole range! Love the cartoons, and the Happy Ever After ending :-) Jo

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  10. ...the band plays every time he lands... very funny. I have a book of his watercolor sketches and I admire his work for preservation, etc.

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  11. My memories of Cranwell are of the battering our Stamford School team took on the rugby field but way back in the 1950s.
    Great post Nell, loved the cartoons.

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  12. I'm sure you got a better deal than you would have had with Charles, given his history.

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  13. Meri, Charles was way out of my league! Bob, thank you for reminding me about Stamford, where we also lived in 1979 when my son was born. Very fond memories.

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  14. Want to bet Charles has the original illustration?

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  15. I don't think I've seen one of these, but the name sounds familiar....very interesting read!

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  16. Ahhh : great pictures, great story ... and a happy ending. What more could Sepia readers want.

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  17. Punch was a very good magazine, such a pity its not published anymore.

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  18. What a caricature of HRH! And what fun memories you have.

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