Newsletter - 2026-07-25

Welcome to a curious edition, but an edition none the less. I suppose you could call it a "Strike Edition", or maybe "Letters From Abroad", but I think I will stick with "Notes and News". 

I have spent the last week in High Wycombe. It is very rural and nipper enjoys it very much. 

Wills Old Furniture 2nd

The main industry of the area, at one time, was chair making, and, strangely, we featured that as our Card of the Day for the 30th of January 2026. 

There were also three later companies from High Wycombe that changed the face of chair making, and these were Robin Day, Ercol, and G-Plan. 

Robin Day was born in 1915, in High Wycombe, and he is best remembered for inventing a moulded plastic stacking chair in 1963. He was given his start in the 1920s, by Ercol, and went on to design groundbreaking furniture for Hille and Pye, as well as John Lewis. 

Ercol was named for its founder Lucian Randolfo Ercolani, who was born on the 8th of May 1888, near Urbino in Italy. Ten years later, the family, including four children, moved to London, and our man was given a kind of scholarship through the Salvation Army. In fact they seem to have adopted his entire family, because his father worked for them as a carpenter. And they also encouraged young Lucian to embark on a furniture design course at Shoreditch Technical Institute in 1906. This led to all the brothers starting a firm called Cabinet Industries, which went on to design the kind of cabinet into which you inserted a gramophone, later a radiogram, and even later still a television. But it was interest from what would become Parker Knoll that led him to move to High Wycombe in 1910. Ten years later he started Furniture Industries Ltd., and that would eventually be renamed Ercol. 

G-Plan started out in the 1890s as E, Gomme Ltd. What made their name was a dining room suite, the first ever to be sold as a unit, with matching tables, chairs and a sideboard. In 1953 they rebranded as G-Plan, with perfect timing, just when the world was hoping to move forward to a lighter, brighter, future  and move away from heavy, dark brown furniture. And because they knew that money was in short supply they offered the option of buying a set of furniture one piece at a time, from a range that would frequently add new pieces. To do this, they bought out many other local companies, as well as national ones with different skills or better equipment that they needed. 

The only cigarette card I have so far found of the town is card 33 of W.D. & H.O. Wills` "Old Inns", which features "The Red Lion, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire". That was issued in 1936. The reverse tells us that it "...became famous through its association with Benjamin Disraeli, afterwards Earl of Beaconsfield. It was from the projecting portico of the Red Lion that the great statesman made his first speech in 1832. Patting the head of the fierce "Red Lion" he is reputed to have said "When the poll is declared I shall be here, and my opponent will be there" (indicating the tail). " The text concludes with yet another reference to chairs, for it tells us that "The new banqueting hall contains fine examples of the craftsmanship of High Wycombe`s master furniture builders". 

As for trade cards, our Card of the Day for the 31st of August, 2025 shows a card from Whitbread & Co. Ltd`s “The History of Whitbread Inn Signs - Marlow (1974). Sadly for tonight it shows The Pen and Parchment in Popley, but nestled amongst the set are card 23, "The Live and Let Live - High Wycombe" and card 24, "The Jolly Bodger - High Wycombe". 

The inns have not prospered. 

"The Live and Let Live" at Booker Common, is no longer living, it closed in 2011.

As for "The Jolly Bodger" it too has gone, at about the same time. It was sold to be converted into housing, but as I type this it is still left empty and decaying . 

But that is quite a neat place to end because a "Bodger" is a term, would you believe, which is also related to the chair making industry. Today it has come to mean a person who does a bad job of mending or making something, but originally it was a highly skilled woodworker, capable and skilled at using a pole lathe or chisel to produce elaborately turned spindles and chair legs, especially on a "Windsor" chair. And yes, the word did originate in High Wycombe, though the derogatory meaning seems to have come from Australia! 

This Week`s events and meetings : 

Sunday the 26th of July : 

  • Hants & Dorset - from 12.30 p.m. until 4.30 p.m.  at Fryers Field Pavilion, Bond Avenue, West Moors, Ferndown, Dorset BH22 OLJ. These meetings offer all manner of ephemera -  cigarette cards, trade cards, football cards, stickers, postcards, and often other related memorabilia, dating from the 1900s (and sometimes earlier) right up to the present day. Something for everyone!  And refreshments are also available. Best of all, admission is free to all collectors
     
  • Lea Valley - from 9 a.m. until 2.00 p.m. - with an auction at 1 p.m. - at The Village Hall, North Weald High Street, CM16 6DH. There are usually three to four dealers each time, and admission is £2 per person

Sunday the 2nd of August :

  • Winchester & Solent - from 1.30 p.m. until 4.00 p.m. at Botley Market Hall, High Street, Botley, near Southampton SO30 2EA. This one is mainly swapping and selling between visitors and club members, but its always a fun day out and often turns up some treasures. By the way their next all day fair will be on Sunday November 1st.

Before we go : 

I thought it may be fun to revisit a few newsletters past which were published around this week, namely : 

 

So if you have any updates, comments, or suggestions for any of these, do please let us know, by emailing webmaster@card-world.co.uk

So a little something different for you to read, and I hope you enjoyed it. And remember if you know of any other cards of the High Wycombe area, do tell us. 

And do tune in next week, even if only to see where I am ......