This card gave us the "work" part of the clue, but also there was an even better reason as to why we included it as some of you may have remembered personally, or been told by your relatives, that R.A.F. pilots used to practise their flying skills by riding on bicycles.
You can read more about this at AWM.gov.au
I am surprised I have not used this set before, it is a really interesting one, and the colour is a vast improvement on the earlier "The Navy at Work", which were half-tones in dark green.
I often wonder at who the people were on such cards. Did they ever know for what purpose their photo was taken? Did they ever get a surprise when they found themselves amidst their cigarettes? Most of all, is this, perhaps, the only surviving image of a man killed so young - and did their families, or descendants, ever get to know, or see it ?
The set is catalogued in our original Churchman reference booklet, RB.10, issued in 1948, as :
116. DEC 1938. 48. THE R.A.F. AT WORK (titled series). Size 2 7/10" x 2 1/10" or 68 x 53 m/m. Numbered 1-48. Fronts printed by letterpress, 4-colour half-tone process. Backs in dark green, with descriptions, album clause and I.T.C. Clause. Printed by Mardon, Son & Hall.
117. 48. THE R.A.F. AT WORK. Identical to (116), but omitting album and I.T.C. Clauses. Overseas issue.
By the time of our original World Tobacco Issues Index, the text is much reduced, to just :
THE R.A.F. AT WORK. Md. Nd. (48) ... C82-75
The updated version of the World Tobacco Issues Index has exactly this wording, just a different code.
By the way, you will find the overseas printing in a new section that follows on below the British issues - it is coded C82-98 (or C504-780)