I-SPY

I am HawkEye...

In England there was once, and perhaps still is, the I-SPY Tribe. It was an organisation innocently insulting of North American aboriginal peoples in that it had, at its head, Big Chief I-SPY, a white man who donned, on suitable occasions, "Red Indian" gear.

The tribe was based on the I-SPY Books, 40-odd small volumes that sold in hundreds of thousands. They still exist, but now sponsored by Michelin. Each book covered a subject such as I-SPY Cars, I-SPY on the Pavement, I-SPY Churches, I-SPY on the Railway etc. As you spotted objects such as coalhole covers, oak trees, semaphore signals, fire engines, whelks and so on you recorded the event in the relevant book, and gained points. Once the book was complete, you sent it to Big Chief I-SPY for his seal of achievement.

Founded by the long-defunct News Chronicle, the tribe had been hugely successful at its peak in the 1950s and early 60s, but as children came under the influence of television its popularity was waning. Still, when I joined the tribe, print runs for several of the titles were still in six figures.

For a couple of years in the early 70s I was Big Chief I-SPY's assistant — "Hawkeye". Red haired, already balding, I didn't look too good in fake Red Indian feathers, but otherwise I had great fun.

My boss was Arnold Cawthrow, a frightfully camp antiques trader with a shop in Camden Passage and a love of boys, pork chops, Italian food and the theatre. He smoked and coughed continuously, and would regularly drop inches of cigarette ash onto any papers I had on my desk.

Overgenerous, kindhearted, intolerant, Arnold was constantly, eyebrow-archingly astonished by me, the company for which we worked, everyone we came into contact with. His favourite (repeatable) expletive was "Chaaarming"... He was converting a chapel in Reach, Cambridgeshire, into a home. It had but a single grave in its garden. It amused him tremendously that this was of the chapel's founder...

My job was to keep the I-SPY books up to date and in print, as well as providing material for a little column that ran in the Daily Mail newspaper. I took photographs and created illustrations, as well as researching facts and dealing with enquiries from the Tribe (which seemed to include a lot of adults who had had a bet the previous night in the pub that the biggest x in the world was y and could we confirm it?).

I worked in the Wigwam By The Green — Paddington Green that was — actually a dull office above a hardware store in Church Street. The office walls were hung with battered stuffed alligators, African spears and other objects of doubtful origin, all of which were hung onto Big Chief's wigwam when he took part in events such as the annual Cat Show at Olympia. The office was run very efficiently, and Arnold's life controlled just as effectively, by Fatima Sonji. It was a major catastrophe when she left to move to Toronto.

Eventually I went on to other things, Arnold retired and the I-SPY tribe continued to fade. But talk to anyone who was a child in the 1950s and 60s and they'll probably remember I-SPY with affection.