There's almost nothing to be found about Cavendish Distributors and the trio of nuggets shown below all leave questions of some kind. It should also be noted that through time there were a couple of other companies called Cavendish Distributors, which appear to be completely unrelated from such business records as can be found. Jack Rosenthal's company of that name apparently wasn't registered as a Limited company, so Companies House has nothing about it...
30 games in a box
The excerpt above is from a press release announcing the Brighton Toy Fair in January 1962, issued at the time by the fair's press officer. (1) Among a number of toys listed is this intriguing set offered by Cavendish Distributers Co. who had a stand at the Metropole Hotel on the seaside. Apart from this description, there's nothing we know about this toy set.
Supercar Polypix
Nobody knows what Polypix may have been either, but Cavendish took out a merchandising licence from AP Films to use their Supercar characters in connection with this product. The entry above was spotted by Dennis Nicholson in the Stage and Television Today issue of 22 August 1962 (click link for entire page in new window). This is also where we find the address for the company, and thus the reason for its name. The price of 10 shillings and sixpence in 1962 equates to a good £10 in today's money.
Fireball XL5 Parachute Rocket
Included in a listing of Anderson merchandise on the website of Andersonic, and published earlier in issue nr 8 of that fanzine, mention is made of Cavendish offering a Fireball XL5 Parachute Rocket in 1963. Which, as Ruth Rosenthal confirmed, was the Quercetti rocket based on Fireball XL5, which her father subsequently took along when he started J Rosenthal (Toys) Ltd (see next page). The listing in Andersonic was compiled by Shaqui Le Vesconte, who tells me the source information and possible scans were sadly lost in a harddisk crash...
1: The press release excerpt is shown with kind permission of
British Pathé Ltd
who archived it along with other documents related to their coverage of the fair. The entire
press release
can be read as a pdf at the BUFVC website, which also links to the other documents
(in green box lower down page). The British Pathé
newsreel feature about the fair is available on their
own website or on
YouTube.
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