I like quirky guidebooks: 2

By the time I developed my enthusiasm for Nairn's London, I realised that my taste for this sort of arcane sightseeing had come out of an even earlier quirky London guide book. That was the I-Spy Sights of London book, which was not a conventional guide, but a spotter book for kids, a grand version of those games that adults now play with their bored children on long journeys in cars that don't have DVD players. You know, forty points for an Eddie Stobart van, that sort of thing.

Almost any Londoner of vaguely my vintage is likely to remember the I-Spy books which were sponsored by the long defunct News Chronicle.

I-Spy books were perfect training for would-be anoraks; there were ones on railways, the fire service, cars, the seashore, pets and many others. I owe my early interest in cars and my ability to this day to identify virtually any car on sight to the interest kindled by I-Spy Cars circa 1952 with its Standard Vanguards, its Rileys, its Alvises and Panhard Dynas.

I-Spy Antique Furniture had me, an East End kid living in a house near the docks with no hot water, bathroom or indoor toilet, trailing round the windows of posh West End antique shops so I could say I'd seen a Hepplewhite table or a Chippendale chair.

I-Spy books also carried an irresistible bonus. The I-Spy concept was woven by the News Chronicle into a strictly non PC version of a Red Indian tribe which kids could sign up to. A Big Chief I-Spy would then send you a letter hailing you as a redskin of the I-Spy tribe, enclosing a pack of codes you could use for tribe activities (unspecified). Odhu ntingo, he signed himself off .

If you could complete an I-Spy book by I-spying every single thing in it, you could send it off to Big Chief I-Spy and he would send you back a real coloured quill feather to put into your imaginary headdress together with a certificate with a suitable redskin rank. Brave First Class (Cars)? I don’t remember the handle, but the feathers were impressive and brightly coloured in shades no native American ever wore. A bit like Brownies badges, only without the tedium of muddy brown uniforms, live meetings with Brown Owl and singsongs round imaginary camp fires

To score the points you had to log where you saw the object, or identify some detail which you could only get by being there.

So I-Spy Sights of London opened my eyes to the history written on houses. It taught me about the eighteenth century insurance subscription plaques on the houses of that period; it taught me how to identify Victorian postboxes (octagonal) for which you scored high points. There was always one high-points item which was virtually impossible to collect. I can't remember what the highest score item was for I-Spy Sights of London, but I know I had to go and read something off the base of the Monument down in Upper Thames Street.

Comments

[sue webster]

hi ,i am a keen I-SPYer and use my books which range from the early ones , david belamy ones and michelin ones. however i would love to get hold of a news chronicle I-SPY badge. do you have any or know where i could get one from ? thanks very much from sue webster.

[sue webster]

do you know where i can geta copy of the news chronicle i-spy tribe tribal certificate also a daily mail i-spy club badge , and an i-spy code book --around 1970? and the news chronicle i-spy promise? ans a david bellamy membership and code book? many thanks sue webster 38 avion close highgate road walsall west midlands ws1 3jf please reply soon and hope you have 0r can get these for me .