Wayne has started a new blog and is currently uploading content relating to his lettercutting and typographic work – I’ll include a link here as soon as it’s up and running. In the late 1970s costly plastic injection-moulding equipment was purchased for soft polymers, although the old vulcanised rubber system was retained for foreign language sets. Depicted as a stout, middle-aged man, often wearing a Union Flag waistcoat, he was popularised by British print makers in the 18th century, hence the association with children's printing sets. They appreciate the different options for the text plate size, which allows for a variety of messages.

Other information: good old set, believed to date from the 1950s - may be of some interest to a collector. I used to have a John Bull printing set, which had a load of tiny rubber letters, which you would set into a wooden holder then press on an ink pad, and print out.For those who don’t know what on earth I am on about, I’d better explain that John Bull was the brand name and the set included long bendy strips of black rubber letters and numbers, which you cut into single letters with scissors and composed into words and sentences in a small red plastic rack with a handle at the back.

On 10/04/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley.

Acquired over the past century or so they are not catalogued, but form part of our Special Collections. My husband Roy Balcomb founded the Databac Group in Kingston upon Thames in 1970, producing Identity Cards.