So many thanks to Mr. Peters who told us that this was issued by Quaker Oats, in England. And lots more gen which will follow at the end of this section.
This cards shows John Alfred, or Johnny, Leach, who was born in Dagenham in Essex in November 1922 and died relatively recently, in 2014, aged ninety-one. In between, he was a player, coach (of the England team), and author, as well as the writer of a regular column in the News of the World, and in 1966 he was also awarded the M.B.E. However he started the game relatively late, especially when compared to the Far Eastern players, at the age of seventeen, and almost immediately his career was interrupted by the Second World War, and he found himself in the Royal Air Force, stationed in Northern Ireland.
On his return to civilian life he decided to give it another try. In 1949 he won the single`s World Championship, and in 1951 he won it again; two years after that he was involved in winning the team World Championship, the only time that Great Britain has ever done so.
As far as cards, they are scarce, only three are listed in the Trading Card Database/Johnny Leach - but this one is not. It is a package issue, in others words printed on the side of a box and cut our, very carefully, by a child or their mother.
It was actually issued in a rather odd way, made even stranger by the fact that Quaker Oats had some of the cards printed on the back of their boxes of puffed wheat, and others on their cornflakes - so to get a set you had to double your cereal intake. Every packet had six cards, at random, printed on the back and the text on the back finishes by saying "Grown Ups - put these by for the kiddies, or give them to any Children`s Hospital", which is rather sweet.
Our British Trade Index part II lists them as :
QUAKER CARDS. Panels 240 x 150, each with six cards 70 x 65 from six series, each Nd. 1/36 ... QUA-30.
1. British Landmarks
2. Great Moments of Sport
3. Household Hints
4. Phiz Quiz
5. Railways of the World
6. The Story of Fashion
We featured the fashion cards before, so click the bold link in the extract above - for that page also has the original report, extracted from the Cartophilic World magazine of September/October 1952 (Vol.9, Issue 101). However that does mean that the date usually given, 1961 - and it is also so in our updated British Trade Index - must be wrong.
In that updated British Trade Index it is also slightly differently catalogued, as :
QUAKER CARDS. 1961. Package lssue 240 x 150, each with six cards 70 x 65. Six series, each Nd. 1/36. Listed separately... QUA-270.
1. British Landmarks
2. Great Moments of Sport
3. Household Hints
4. Phiz Quiz
5. Railways of the World
6. The Story of Fashion
The series within the main set are not catalogued as separate series, they just appear alphabetically within the text then say "Package issue. See QUA-270.[1-6 respectively]
By the way, and just to keep you in the loop, as it were, there are a few cards in our set which relate to football - and which you can have a look at courtesy of the Football Cartophilic Exchange/Quaker. They also have a checklist of the entire sports section of this set on their site, though not all the cards are illustrated.