Civil War News - A Cheat's Collection

Hold your horses - I’ll get to that cheating part soon enough!

By the age of five I was deeply but willingly trapped in the world of PG Tips tea card collecting. Along with a handful of missing individual cards all but one of their UK albums are still with me. They ignited an early thirst for knowledge and a warm feeling in the presence of delightful artwork from C. F. Tunnicliffe, R. A. and Richard Ward among others.

With acquisitiveness comes the burning desire for completion. Like-minded friends and a rack of swap cards in a local corner shop helped to hurry the collection of each full set.

In my first teenage year in the middle of the ‘Swingin’ Sixties’ the cards grew larger and were allied to the smell of bubblegum rather than tea. Their themes took in popular culture (TV), pop culture (pop music) and history. One of the history inputs came in the form of A&BC’s 'Civil War News' Bubblegum Cards 1965 (UK). Aimed at the typical schoolchild (schoolboy, I suspect, given the year) with a healthy interest in gore and a desire to see the word ‘DEATH’ repeated - repeatedly.

Scans of my so nearly full set are HERE. An index card would make that eighty-eight cards but I might have considered it unimportant. An album was never bought. Plenty of collections surface on eBay but I intend hanging on to mine for a while longer.

Apologies to those of you getting impatient but the ‘cheating’ explanation now begins. My secondary school day’s dinner times were either packed lunch or a bike ride home to a meal from Mum. The latter option gave me a pass to the outside world for an hour or so which was denied to school dinner takers. Other boys would give me their pocket money (are any parents still doing the pocket money thing?) and I would return to school having bought as many packs of the hotly desired Civil War issue as their pennies allowed. I provided a much appreciated service for fellow bloodthirsty teens who eagerly ripped open their spoils on my return. None seemed to notice how easily packets revealed their contents. Perhaps cards had been loosely factory-wrapped. In truth, I had already done my work and gone ‘undercover’ with each pack. Any cards needed for my collection were removed and replaced with swaps before I handed over from my guilty, grubby hands into other merely grubby hands.

My set was complete at breakneck speed. Perhaps the guilt finally played a part as I don’t recall practising this deception again with any other collection.

I am sure you will understand why I have tried to brush that episode under the carpet for as long as possible.

Reminders of the PG Tips collecting days flood back every time leaf tea is opened. I never chewed on a great deal of bubblegum but I still have the nostalgic, guilt-ridden whiff of ‘spoggy’ each time I make these. Other less exotic syrup flavours are available.

Best to keep as quiet as possible about the petty criminal who cared nothing about damaging his school’s reputation. My alma mater is very keen to trumpet the names of Keir Starmer and David Walliams as distinguished Old Boys. It would be such a shame if the present management felt compelled to issue a perfectly legitimate calumny against of one of their alumni. So might I ask one last thing? Keep my revelations here to yourself. Find a way to read once and then destroy by chewing and swallowing. Something like that.

Thank you.