Are you old enough to recall that time in the late 70s when the Target range of Doctor Who novels shrank by about a quarter of an inch? Here's why.... I remember those cast iron metal machines firmly fixed to the brickwork of the London Underground. These robust fellahs allowed to you purchase pocket-sized bars of Dairy Crunch or boxes of fruit Poppets.
You put a coin in the slot and used all your strength to yank open a drawer in which - if you were lucky - was a single bar/box of confectionery. If there wasn't, hard luck... as the nearest member of staff was usually one of the nominees for Surliest Underground Worker of the Year.
Target Books - famous for their burgeoning collection of Doctor Who novelisations - had the idea of using these machines to sell their wares. I mean, who wouldn't want to read the novel of The Web of Fear in the very location in which it is set?
A test model was constructed and installed on the platform of Covent Garden tube station in 1977.
Sadly, the project was doomed from the start when it was discovered the books - despite being printed in a more compact form - were still too large to fit in the machine. Further attempts were made to shrink them to the size of a Kit Kat but the whole thing was hastily abandoned.
The specially printed - and slightly smaller - books were eventually given away as part of a "Doctor Who Book Bonanza" competition the following year.
And that is why, the Target novelisations' size shrank by several millimetres for a short period of time in 1978.
Honest.
