of course this references one of Roald Dahl`s great characters, Matilda. I wonder if he based her on our Queen here for she was brave and never gave up - but she was also proud, unpopular, and wanted everything to be done as she liked. She even imprisoned her own brother in Bristol Castle.
She actually had two great escapes, once from Devizes, by making out she was a corpse on the way to a funeral in Gloucester - and, as shown on this card, from Oxford, by being lowered down the walls by rope in a blizzard of thick snow and walking to Wallingford. However both these events took planning and also assistance from very faithful friends, so it cannot be true that nobody liked her.
This set is one of the original Carreras “Turf” cards, not to be confused with the blue and white packet issue which came much later. However though they say Carreras, they were actually issued through their subsidiary Alexander Boguslavsky.
The fronts are glazed, which seems to have affected the backs in some way for the backs are almost always tinged with yellow.
The set was issued in three sizes, standard and large, each being sets of twenty-five cards, plus a set of ten selected cards in a size called cabinet, measuring 133 m/m x 70 m/m, and intended to be saved as a work of art.
In the 1950 London Cigarette Card Company catalogue the small and large sizes are priced up at 6d. a card or 15/- a set. However the cabinet size is 1/9d. a card or 25/- a set. I am not sure what the ten selected cards were, as I have never actually seen a cabinet size card of this set, so does anyone out there know more? Do tell us!
If anyone has any of these largest ones maybe we could make a list to show which ten were selected. The names will be sufficient, and many thanks.