This set shows the power of possibility, and that the forthcoming war would need everyone to stand together. So here we have a volunteer, a non military man even, on a motorbike, which, or so it is suggested, was the one he drove every day, for work and for pleasure. Yet he is a vital part of the delivery of an important message, for the wardens cannot leave their post to deliver it. Look, they are running to him. Without him, the war may be lost. And, to stress this, the artist has put him right at the centre of the card, not just partially seen at the edge, as a shadow.
If you had a bike, and you got this card, you would want to be there, playing a modern day knight, with a new kind of horse power.
As a brief note, the text says "Note the shading device on the lamp of the motor cycle". This was a kind of shutter, which allowed the lamp to function normally when not in blackout conditions, but to comply when it was. They actually used these on four wheeled transport as well, though on those the idea was that you only used one of these shading devices, the other headlight being blacked over entirely with paint. However this meant that the roads were full of cars that could not be seen and the blackout was a disaster for pedestrians. Injuries and fatalities soared. It is known that in 1940, eight and a half thousand civilians were killed on the roads, and the following year it had risen to over nine thousand. And blackout still remained until April 1945.
Now this set may say Hignett on each card, but it is entirely identical to the set of the same name issued by Ogdens, as well as to all the other issuers which are recorded in our blog A for Air Raid Precautions. The most important difference though was that this Hignett one was the last of all those versions to be issued. As to when, well, all we know is that it was some time in 1939, the year after all the rest.
There was no reference book devoted to Hignett either, so it appears first in our original World Tobacco Issues Index of 1956, with the rather scant description of "AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS. Sm. Nd. (50). See Ha.544"
Ha.544 takes you to the handbook, but all that does is give you a list of the sets which were issued by both Ogdens and Hignett.
We do know that the Hignett versions of these sets are scarcer, and therefore more costly, but that is simply because Hignett cigarettes did not sell in such quantity as the Ogdens.