Just found a nice book from 1970,....very interesting...

I quite like the "modernise your home with asbestos" type books.

And "electrical things you can make at home for boys"

Owain

DIY eye surgery with a Mamod steam engine.

I used to have (and wish I still did) a Boys' Annual which contained, among many other useful articles, a complete guide to home taxidermy with illustrated instructions on how to stuff your deceased pet budgie.

There was a wonderful one act play "As good as New", where a young lady's boy friend dropped dead. "Never mind dear" said her mother "Grandpa will make him a s good as new.". Grandpa did taxidermy,

There used to be a magazine called Amateur Mechanic which explained everything from how to stuff a cow - no sniggering at the back - to how to make a radio - the latter being a crystal set to receive Morse signals from ships on ultra long wave: I think the article was published just after WW1.

My father had two bound volumes of the issues: in those days you sent the magazines back to the publisher who bound them properly so you couldn't tell that they had been individual issues. We also had a big dictionary issued in fortnightly parts.

I did that with Wireless World, for years.

That practice continued for a long time: I have a bound volume of Gramophone magazine from the mid-seventies which was produced in exactly the same way.

Do you recall Knowledge, which you bound yourself on a special binder. They were very good value. The only problem of course was you occasionally found missing issues and incorrect indexing when you tried to bind them. I learned a lot as a child from those, including how to build a nuclear pile and why a moderator was needed etc, Had a bit of trouble getting the right kind of Uranium though. grin. Brian

Mummy, mummy, I've just learned fucivorous! What new words shall I learn next week, mummy?

Owain

Was it expensive? Usually you sent away for a "binder" that the magazines fell out of.

I thought Knowledge was too intellectual and full of boring history, so I went for Discovering Science. I suppose I kind of thought that if I had a comprehensive book I wouldn't need actually to learn anything. Unfortunately the indexing was inadequate (i.e. non-existent), and they continued to produce them past the number of volumes they originally planned for so I cancelled the subscription.

My parents got me that. Bright green binders.

No, that was "Understanding Science". "Knowledge" had dark blue binders with a Pharoah's Mummy on the cover.