FIREBALL XL5 ANNUALS COVER GALLERY...

Copyright relevant owner

I think it's fairly safe to say that I never owned a brand-new Fireball XL5 Annual when I was a kid, instead acquiring them in jumble sales up to a couple or so years after they first came out.  If I recall correctly, I remember seeing the second one (1964 for '65) on the way to school one morning with my brother and some of his friends, one of whom showed it to the rest of us.  We'd both not long moved from our first house to another, five minutes down the road in the same neighbourhood, but we'd ventured up to our old street so that my brother could reunite with a few of his pals from the area for our trek to school.

And that's why I associate one of the Annuals with a house and street we longer lived in, though obviously you won't be the least interested in that trivial fact.  I mention it however, because I tend to imagine that all four Annuals must belong to the period of when I stayed in those two houses and attended my first primary school, though I also remember them from our third house in the town (when I was at my next primary) because that's when I acquired second-hand copies for myself - usually from the church across the road when it had one of their Summer or Christmas Fayres.

Looking back, I'm kind of surprised to be reminded that the first Annual went on sale in 1963 when I yet lived in our first house, the second hit the shelves in '64 when I was in our second home, the third went on sale in '65 just before we flitted once again - and was still selling as a new book (as it was for the coming year - '66) when my family was freshly ensconced in our third abode.  The fourth and final Annual hit the shops after I'd been in our new (third) home for nearly a year, but due to the fact that I obtained it second-hand a year or two after it first came out, I always assumed that it was a much older book than it was.  (I have absolutely no memory of ever having seen any of them in the shops.)

I likely had all four books in that third house (though not necessarily at the same time), obtained 'pre-owned' (as they say these days), so I connect them with there now, but at the time, I tended to think all four predated my tenure in that particular place of residence and belonged to an earlier period.  (When you're between 7 and 10, even a handful of years seems much greater than it is.)  "But what's all that got to do with the price of cheese?" you may be asking.  Nothing really, apart from the fact that the fourth book was fairly contemporary, and properly belonged in our third house, having been published while we lived there, though I didn't know it at the time.

The foregoing preamble is just my usual long-winded way of saying that I'm surprised by that, and it also helps fill a space on the blog while at the same time giving you four nice images to look at.  I especially love the fourth one by Mike Noble - which one is your favourite?

Incidentally, I typed all this while suffering from 'brain fog', so don't be surprised to see some revisions somewhere down the line if I can think of a clearer and more concise way to express myself.       

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