Puffin Post ! anyone remember...

[MaryAnnSingleton]

I joined the Puffin club as a girl - we got fab magazines all about books and a plastic folder to keep them in !

[Blandmum]

I was in the puffin club. Loved it. Wish there was something like that out now. DD would love it too.

[motherinferior]

I have a number of bound folders still

[motherinferior]

I won some competitions [intolerable showing-off emoticon]

[MaryAnnSingleton]

oh how I wish I'd kept mine !

[MaryAnnSingleton]

I was always envious of the competition winners ! The mags were always illustrated beautifully - I'd love to see one

[motherinferior]

It was a bit of a lifeline for me, as a rather isolated and off-putting pudgy child.

[WendyWeber]

I actually worked for Puffin Club one summer (as an utter minion)

[motherinferior]

Did you meet Kaye Webb????????

[MaureenMcGonagall]

I remember Puffin Club. You had a badge too, that enabled you to get into places for free, bit like a Blue Peter badge.

[MaryAnnSingleton]

motherinferior - can you pick one out and describe what's in it ? I remember one with a thing about Leon Garfield in it (did he write 'Smith' ?)

[motherinferior]

Yep, got that one. I was a member on and off for years, and picked up the folders (and two annuals - actually one of those might have the Smith story in it) when I was last at my parents'.

[motherinferior]

(I will look, but they're down at the bottom of the Inferiority Complex and I am in the study at the top and if I go down my fellow inmates will spot me on MN again.)

[Blandmum]

MI you won????

may I sit at your feet and worship?

I'm impressed!

[MaryAnnSingleton]

oh it's taken me right back - I wonder if they are on eBay ?

[Blandmum]

MI you were never sad enough to be in a club called the Teriffic Two though, were you? I couldn't strech to 4 friends to be in the fantastic five, or whatever, so the terrific two it had to be

[motherinferior]

I entered a lot of comps before I won anything!

[WendyWeber]

I don't think I met her then, but did sit next to her on a coach going to the pantomime once, aged about 10 - my dad worked at Penguin Books and we used to have a children's party/outing every Christmas.

He had recently drowned some baby mice in our shed and I told her all about it in disgust; she relayed the story back to him later with great amusement. (I had pet mice in the shed and a naughty house mouse had bred with mine, resulting in mad hybrid babies which ran up the wall. He took the shed apart, found the nest in the lawnmower grass catcher and dropped it down the outside loo .)

I was traumatised (can still see him furiously flinging bits of garden equipment out the door!)

[tissy]

I won a competition as well! I painted a picture of my family and won a huge art set. Years later, when at Nottingham University, I visited the Professor who had all the pictures from the competetion, and managed to pick mine out without looking at the name.

Can't remember who the Professor was, or why he had the pictures, but.

[treacletart]

Sniffup?

[vonsudenfed]

I was never allowed to join (don't know why, my parents were otherwise v keen to encourage my bookishness!) but read all the Puffin Posts when I was at my cousins.

My friend from university won loads of the competions, though, I later found out. And DH even went on a couple of the Puffin Club Colony Holidays - I think he found them a bit of a lifeline too, as a reserved, bookish child. I wasn't allowed to go to those either

[treacletart]

Yay! was begining to think I'd misremembered the secret password! I also remember a little secret handbook (pink? I think?) and going to some sort of special Puffin anniversary celebration in the Mall somewhere and writing something embarassing about Abba to put in a time capsule

[margoandjerry]

Oh my god! Puffin Post!!!! Sorry to be so late to this but !!!!!!!!

I loved this. I won a prize too, for writing a poem which I think was something to do with eating an orange and getting sticky. Anyone remember that masterpiece?

I think my prize was some of those "From the library of...." stickers to stick in the front of your books. Except I didn't understand and I wrote the name of the publisher in the space

I was looking at my copy of The Animal Family only yesterday as it happens (and wondering if Kaye Web ever knew how much impact she was having - she should have been Dame Kaye surely?). On the front page (I am going to say the word frontispiece without really knowing what it means...) is a "From the library of...." sticker, with "Puffin Books" written in my 9 year old joined up handwriting!

[MuminBrum]

I won a comp too! I have some annuals but I don't think I have any of the mags anymore, sadly. I longed to go on a colony holiday - as a reserved, bookish child myself, I always imagined they would be a bit of a lifeline, just as VonSudenfed says. I met Kaye Webb at one of Puffin's summer does - she was lovely, a sort of dream grandma figure. I met Quentin Blake too, my favourite illustrator. Happy days!

[bluesky]

Puffin Post, gosh there's a memory I'd hidden away!! I loved it!

Mum used to take me to London when they had their big event, I would proudly wear my badge and I still have my Roald Dahl autograph and Quentin Blake. It was brilliant.