Two titles I assume released together, both in 1955. Neither were especially easy to fill in as by their very nature, most of the craftsmen shown in them (and they are all men in the first title) would have worked in small premises away from view. “Maybe you will come across some of the Town Craftsmen in the country – and vice versa” Big Chief I-Spy suggested helpfully. And even back in 1955 some of these crafts were quite obscure. There weren’t that many cricket bat makers around, and cricket ball manufacturers must have been ever thinner on the ground. If there are no women working in the town, they did at least get a look in on some of the country crafts such as weaving and lace making. Both books are full of fascinating and mostly long-lost crafts though, and I’m not sure where you’d go to find a china riveter or a maker of wooden clothes pegs today. Other crafts have undergone modest revivals, and a few of the willow related industries and others could get you a decent score today. Both titles lasted through to the Dickens Press revisions but I do not know if they were updated.
Kingsley Sutton did the Town Crafts cover, and D. W. Ovenden the Country Crafts.
[1] News Chronicle. 1955
[2] Daily Mail / Dickens Press – News Chronicle removed from cover. 1961 [?]
[3] Dickens Press – 1964 [?]
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