“…… Anyone still have them?

“…”

Hi ZRX 61,

Yes, I think I still have a load of them somewhere – they carried captioned colour still photos from the film on the front face, and facsimile/reproduced British newspaper headlines/columns from various dates during the BofB on the rear face.

I remember chewing my way through many lumps of the disgusting chewing gum in vain attempts to collect more cards – not sure why I didn’t just ‘bin’ the gum unused, but I guess that was a little too obvious to a nine year-old who was desperate to collect as many of the set of cards as possible :apologetic:.

I also had a very crude “Battle of Britain” board game where you ‘flew’ cardboard pieces marked with Spitfires or Bf109’s across a hexagonal-gridded board based on shakes of a dice/die, having made each piece ‘take off’ from their respective side of the English channel, with the aim of getting on the tail of, and then ‘shooting down’, the opposing aircraft. The original box, which carried the film logo etc has long since been lost, but I think I still have the playing board and the playing pieces.

I have a well worn, and much read, copy of Leonard Mosley’s paperback about the making of the film book (entitled ‘Battle of Britain’), plus copies of Ginger Lacey’s biography ‘Fighter Pilot’ and a BofB novel (sorry, title and author escape me – possibly ‘ Squadron Airborne’?) that were published by Pan books in paperback cover designs that tied in to the film release. I also still have one of the old Dinky diecast Ju 87s (complete with cap-firing bomb) that tied in with the film – my younger brother had their Spitfire in spurious AI-A markings, I wonder where that went.

For a youngster with a growing interest in aviation the release of the film in 1969, and all the tie-in merchandise that followed, no doubt helped cement my lifelong love of historic aviation.

I must dig out the DVD and watch it again…