Banton & Co were a Nottingham based company that specialised in eiderdowns, quilts, bedspreads etc, we have a note that they exhibited at the British Industries Fair in 1947, though by the 1960s they seem to have diversified into the outdoor market, producing duvets for mountaineers to wear rather than sleep under along with sleeping bags to sleep in, the skill of containing duck down in a versatile material translating nicely from indoors to outdoors. We are not 100% sure, but it looks like they took the trading name Point Five from an ice climb of the same name on Ben Nevis, a drawing of the North Face of Ben Nevis appears on their logo giving some credence to this theory. Point Five did a good marketing job in the 1960s/70s with duvets becoming the height of fashion, unfortunately folk soon realised that they were not much use in the mountains, you were too cold without it and too hot with it, duck down didn’t like the UK climate either and the feathers got in your tea when out camping. Point Five did produce lighter versions filled with Dacron Fiberfill, though by the 1990s they seem to have disappeared from the scene. The standard model we have here in the collection once belonged to Jack Simpson and was kindly donated by his wife Mary. It would have cost Jack £19.00 when he bought it back in the 1970s.