Matt,
Well then where do I start??
I met Prof. Brian Cox at a BBC event in London to celebrate 55 years of The Sky at Night and strangely enough I mentioned to him that my school prize in 1963 was The Observers Book of Astronomy, which I read from cover to cover during a train journey heading off on holiday that year. He of course mentioned his encounter with ‘TOBOA’ which might also have been in 1971 like you. So you, me and Brian C. have that one thing in common!
I cut a lot of the colour plates out of TOBOA (together with some from the non-PC “Boys Book of Astronomy” by Patrick) and stuck them on the front cover of my school scrapbook, which I carried around with me to the various lessons. I still have it somewhere ….