Feeling nostalgic for my student days, when I used to potter about in charity shops, I headed down to Stockbridge to reminisce and maybe track down some unusual books, for Stockbridge is where they all seem to end up.

It was on the bottom shelf, hidden away among the usual charity shop junk, that I found one gem. Outwardly very plain, having lost its jacket, the spine simply read "Adventures in Space". Inside, though, was a different story - this late 1970s book of sci-fi stories for children was richly illustrated, in that inimitable "everyone has 1970s haircuts" style. Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the book.

First off, we have this, possibly the strangest scene depicted in the book. I haven't actually read the story, but from the accompanying illustrations, I gather people from the future mistakenly caused a dinosaur-based battle, where a gathering of human armies from across time was assembled in order to combat the accidental reptilian incursion.

Next up is this scene, showing a pair of businessmen pointing at another spaceship from their own comfortable craft. In this version of the future, we'll be capable of interplanetary travel, but still read physical newspapers. The people who wrote and illustrated these books must have been really blown away when the first iPad newspaper editions came out.

This one's a rather lovely picture, I thought, though still pretty bizarre. I had to read a bit of the story to understand it. Having been confined to a subterranean world all their lives due to constant nuclear bombardment by Martians, two children escape to find a green and pleasant world above. Here, they're seen running away from a robot which - it turns out - comes in peace. It all gets a bit weird and preachy at the end, where we discover the children's names are Adam and Eve. Uh huh.

Finally, another plain weird one. I don't want any part in this terrifying future.