All posts by Sherief Hassan

BBC Radio 4 Great Lives – Kaye Webb

I am surprised and pleased to report that the BBC Radio 4 series, Great Lives, is honouring Kaye Webb.

I’m surprised as I would have thought that she would have been the subject long ago, but equally pleased that this is being rectified.

Kaye was nominated by old Puffineer Janet Ellis, the former Blue Peter presenter and author. Janet isn’t the only BBC R4 presenter to be an old Puffineer – Presenter and Comedian, Sue Perkins revealed that she too was a member during one of her last appearances on Radio 4’s ‘Just a Minute’ before she became the new host.

I was approached by the series producer to fill in some gaps about Kaye and the Puffin Club, although the biography ‘So much to tell’ by Valerie Grove has been of great help. So far, I don’t know if or who else is being brought in as part of the programme. As Great Lives is one of the few BBC radio series that don’t disappear from the BBC website after being broadcast, I will add a permanent link along with the Desert Island Discs programme that Kaye recorded – which is still available.

Calling all ex Puffineers!

I am looking for your stories and, if you have them, pictures about your time as members of the Puffin Club from it’s launch in 1967 through to its end in the early 1980’s.

I’m currently pulling everything together for a book to celebrate the Puffin Club in all its glory while us old birds can still remember it all. This is my thank you to the club as 2017 will see its fiftieth anniversary!

It’s been a long time….

I have been away doing lots of other things, feeling safe in the knowledge that a Puffin Post/Puffin Club thing was out there for those that wanted it.

Sadly, I have just received the early Christmas card from the fab team at The Book People, who have been running and publishing the Puffin Post Club, and the news is that they will no longer be running it after Christmas.

Whether this means that it is going to disappear completely, or that Pearson (who own the Puffin brand) will take it on in-house, is not clear.

Despite the challenges of a book club for children in an age when they are increasingly print illiterate, I hope that it can still survive.

In the meantime, here is the first episode of the wonderful Odway strip by Jill McDonald.

More later……..

Joy unbounded…..

This picture was forwarded to me by Nick Campbell who used one of my restorations on a great article on Kaye Webbs biography.  His blog is well worth visiting and is very well written.

This is one of the pictures that have been placed online by the guys at Seven Stories.

This is a picture from the Kaye Webb Archive, and it is evidently a picture of a small part of the body of work that Jill MacDonald created in her time at Puffin.

I know that times are tough, but I would urge support of the work that is done at Seven Stories. The care of literature for children is so important.

Due to requests and comments –  here is a link to Kaye’s page at the Seven Stories website

Four year member card

I received my Four year members badge attached to one of these, but it was so badly crumpled and torn by the badge that it eventually disintegrated. This is a nicely reconstructed one. Like the founders card, it’s about A6 in size. The badge, as regular visitors to the site will know, is black! And yes, I still proudly wear mine….pinned to my battered bush hat.

I love the treatment of the ‘4’! It’s something that Jill seemed to do without any effort.

I don’t know if the new club intends on doing the same thing. From what I’ve seen, it looks like the new badge changes colour each year.