A fascinating collection of photos, documents and newspaper clippings leading up to and including the 1964 attempt on the land speed record by Donald Campbell is to go under the hammer at Golding Young & Mawer's Grantham sale room next week.
Contained within the collection (Lot 2) is a personal statement by Donald Campbell regarding the 5 years planning and development of the Bluebird Proteus CN7 car in which he states: "Every single component involved in the new vehicle has been specially designed, developed and tested and this has involved the closest co-operation and support from 69 different companies. From this it can be seen that the entire effort is truly representative of the British industry."
One of the 69 companies involved was Newark-based Ransome & Marles, who supplied all of the ball and roller bearings used in the transmission of this famous car. The collection includes photos of Ransome & Marles vehicles and page two of a signed letter from Donald Campbell to Ransome & Marles.
Also set to go under the hammer is a signed, hand-written letter by Enid Blyton (Lot 15), famous children's author, to fan Elaine Strauss. The letter, from Green Hedges, Beaconsfield is written on Noddy notepaper, who is one of her most widely known characters amongst younger readers. Blyton thanks Elaine for the short story that she sent in for publication in 'Sunny Skies' and complements her on "quite a good little story for your age".
Sadly Blyton goes on to say she won't be able to publish the story as she plans to discontinue her Sunny Skies series in favour of an 'Enid Blyton Magazine'. This was to become the Enid Blyton Sunny Stories magazine spanning 1937 - 1953 and featured 553 issues. The letter comes with the original envelope handwritten by Enid Blyton.
Hunting interest in the sale comes in the form of a 19th Century Scrimshaw Powder Horn (Lot 16) and a hand coloured photograph of Edward Prince of Wales depicted on his hunter (Lot 431).
