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35
Without a car or even a horse to her name, she
would often wake at 5am and set offof onn foot
for up to 18 hours a day, recording the
streets in her notepad. She later wrote:
‘I would go down one street, fifindnd three
more and have no idea whereIwe I was!’as!’
Thousands of miles
It was a time-consuming process and,
without the promise of a publishing
contract at the end of it, many thought Phyllis
was chasing a pipe dream. Even after covering
3,000 miles and mapping 23,000 roads, nobody
seemed interested in printing her detailed atlas.
With the help of a draughtsman who had
worked for her father, Phyllis then decided
to go it alone and in 1936 set up the
Geographers’ Map Company Ltd.
She paid to print a total of
10,000 copies but at one
point realised she had left out
Trafalgar Square. The A-Z
name itself came from the
street index, which guided
readers through the various
map pages.
Phyllis persuaded
newsagent WH Smith to
stock a modest 250 copies
in its shops. She was forced
to deliver the atlases herself
– using ala largearge wheelbarrow.
Supplies soon ran out and
more had to be printed. ButLIMITED
she could still only afford toANY
manage the printing, sales,
COMP delivery and book-keeping herself.
MAP ‘The Second World War was aba bitit of
A-Z a blow to us because the Government
put restrictions on map printing, in case
we were invaded,’ explains »
A-ZZ mamanagingnaging directorGEOGRAPHERS’
34-36 A-Z V3 RAC8.indd 35 24/2/09 02:08:43
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