The clue here was that Lord Derby was the first to physically light the illuminations at Blackpool, in 1934. What I don`t know is why he was chosen. Do any of you?
WelI, confession time, I intended to make the rest of the week all his fellow lighters uppers, but have drawn a blank on getting cards.
The famous racehorse Red Rum was one, when, in 1977, he walked over the switch. He does appear on a set of "Grand National Winners 1976-1995", twenty large cards by G.D.S. Cards issued in 1997, but it is not a set I have, or know anyone with. And he also appears, as an artists impression, on the back of a set of playing cards advertising Old Holborn Tobacco.
Another exciting illuminatrix was a Canberra bomber, though it actually just flashed its lights as it flew over and the illuminations were started up by someone on the ground. The exciting thing about this was that it was "assisted by Douglas Bader" in some way I have not discovered - yet. Unless he was the switch flicker on the ground ?
At this time, 1909-1929, Gallaher was cornering the market in long sets, most usually of a hundred cards, even the Great War VC Heroes, though split into smaller sections of twenty five, makes up two sets of a hundred. Our set is one of the oddities, for it is only seventy five cards, and it has a very unusual solid orangey yellow border. But in the very same month another set, of twenty five cards, with the same border, was issued. That was called "Champion Animals and Birds". So was the intention to call these two parts of a hundred card set called "Champions"?
The evidence is compelling, for both were printed by Norbury, Natzio & Co. Ltd of Manchester, the only Gallaher sets they printed. And our original Gallaher reference book (RB.4), issued in 1944, adds more - for it says that "cards are known with wrong descriptions", namely descriptions from "Champion Animals and Birds" on the backs of cards from "British Champions of 1923", and descriptions from "British Champions of 1923" on the backs of cards from "Champion Animals and Birds". And the only way this could happen is if the cards were produced at the same time.