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Just a quick message re Ellisdons. When I was 10 years old (about 50 years ago) my parents moved to a new house. The previous owners used to receive an Ellisdon's catalogue and hadn't cancelled it. I was fascinated by it. And looked forward to it arriving each year when I would buy floating sugar cubes, itching powder, double sided suckers which you could stick a cup to a saucer, soap that made your face dirty when you used it, very hot jelly sweets - I could go on. In fact I will because I must mention the luminious dancing skeleton as well.. The catalogue showed me a 'wonderland' I never knew existed. Every thing was irresistable. It eventually stopped coming and I was growing up anyway and friends and relatives were getting wary of what joke I might play on them, but it is something I have never forgotten and I can remember how much pleasure and excitment it brought. It's probably responsible for the urge I still have to play practical jokes on people from time to time even now.

Thanks for those memories Paul!

Paul: If you send me a pm with youe postal address I will mail you a mini (repro) Ellisdon Catalogue.
Mandrake has one. I bought about 15 when they came out.
Unfortunately I cannot send you any of the 6 real Ellisodn catalogues I have as they too bring back so many happy memories.

Allen Tipton

hi
anyone have any old books, mini books catalogues or anything to do with the ellisdons tricks jokes please
into my 50th year and remember ordering so much jokes and novelty items in the 70s
can send paypal payment .or even photo copies of the catalogues
thanks
mark

Hi
I have a Ellisdons World Renown Jokes catalogue dated 1975. Its about 8" x $" containing some 30 pages of jokes.
Is this worth anything can anyone tell me?

I remember one of Ellisdon's suppliers telling me that when they were going out of business the management were rolling around drunk in the boardroom at the end!

That probably explains why I didn't receive my last order from them

mark lewis wrote: I remember one of Ellisdon's suppliers telling me that when they were going out of business the management were rolling around drunk in the boardroom at the end!

I believe the same thing happened at British Leyland !

Each year during the 1950s my mother sent off for an Ellisdons catalogue which was delivered to our house in North Yorkshire. The whole family would look through it and we'd send off for some jokes which would arrive in time for Christmas. Cue much fun. For years and years afterwards, right up until the 1990s when my dad died, there was a rubber coat hanger in our downstairs loo/cloakroom to catch out unsuspecting guests who'd hang their coat on it and watch it fall to the floor. Then they'd try again... just the name Ellisdons conjures up laughter for me, always will.

Somewhere I have their rubber bottle opener which caused much merriment when my uncle couldn't understand why he couldn't open his bottle of Mackeson. Mind you, he was drunk at the time .....