Mixed Signals

Postcard publishers were quick to see the rich comic potential in the image of the matelot. The saucy sailor with upturned moustache has an enduring fascination whether he clings to a flagpole or strikes a pose inside a lifebelt. Such jaunty images have generated much camp humour and all manner of innuendo. Advertisers have taken full advantage of another attribute of the mariner – the reputation for courage in adversity that has made them especially valuable in the marketing of tobacco products. I’m not so sure as to how far these attitudes persist across the Atlantic. The postcards below celebrate the immaculate uniforms associated with naval traditions. The notion of training sailors in the fine arts of needlecraft may have a practical application in mending their uniforms, or perhaps they’re preparing for a transition into the fashion industry after demobilisation. Relaxing with a Pepsi in the company of comrades from the other services seems a little tame for these notoriously serious drinkers but this is another of those postcard images where expressions of joviality are greatly exceeded by expressions of suspicion and downright hostility. 

Great Railway Stations Number 7: Hull Paragon

A few years ago, the ineffable Kirstie’n’Phil, Channel 4’s evil impresarios of property porn topped up their bank balances by hosting a cut and paste show entitled Britain’s Worst Places to Live. As an exercise in gloating over the victims of misfortune it captured the spirit of the times to perfection. When the countdown was complete the city of Hull was awarded the plume of victory in this gruesome contest. A travesty of course - even the worst features of Hull are never as devoid of human spirit as the hollowed-out, soulless Home Counties villages where Kirstie’n’Phil’s over rewarded clients from the world of business and finance are so desperate to locate themselves. Hull offers a remarkable number of substantial Victorian buildings of quality, many of which are quite exceptional, and the best way to arrive in the city is by train. 

On arrival your train will be engulfed by the last of the great Victorian-era barrel vaulted, wrought-iron and glass train sheds, completed in 1904 by the North Eastern Railway and maintained in good order. There are five vaults over the platforms and two at right-angles that shelter the station concourse. The postcard view shows the main station buildings positioned parallel with the platforms as they appeared around 1905. Extensive remodelling has followed, including infilling the porte-cochère and today’s buildings are difficult to match up with the postcard scene. The former booking-office, hand-crafted in wood is carefully preserved although lacking any obvious function it seems more of a museum exhibit – the original mosaic floor and internal glazed brick and faience decoration also remain in situ. The concourse provides an impressive space for the circulation of passengers and includes a bronze likeness of poet Philip Larkin – a generous gesture on the part of the citizens of Hull (who raised the cash to pay for it) toward a long-term resident who never went out of his way to befriend the locals. There must be a suspicion that the sculpture displays more animation than the subject would have exhibited in real life. 

Postcard of the Night No. 8, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Night has fallen over the crossroads of the nation and the rival networks of bus and train offer the nocturnal traveller an easy exit from Cheyenne. An oversized Union Pacific flag is attached to the tower of the railroad depot. According to my 1949 timetable a train from Cheyenne can be in Chicago in 16 hours or go west to San Francisco in just under 24 hours. The indigent itinerant in search of free high-risk railroad travel would be making for the hobo jungle to compete with fellow vagabonds for a ride in a freight car. First hand experience of the delights of the Bus Depot is limited but I can still recall the odour of diesel, donuts and Lucky Strikes that hung heavy in the air of these uninviting facilities. My diary for 1966 records that I passed through Cheyenne on August 23rd. en route from Salt Lake City to Omaha in the air-conditioned confinement of a Greyhound bus. 

H M Bateman and Working Class Pursuits

Now that tobacco products are concealed from public view by a PVC curtain, the days when they were openly advertised seem increasingly remote. The shadow of the carcinoma had yet to fall in the 1950s when these were first published and smoking was still perceived as the first (and easiest) step towards adulthood in a world where seniority invariably prevailed over merit in the workplace. These vignettes of working class culture were intended to appeal to the lower income smoker and therein lies the irony. The artist, H M Bateman (1887-1970) was by all accounts an inveterate snob with a hearty contempt for his social inferiors; he also had a persistent problem with paying income tax. If he was alive today he would be voting UKIP and passionately supporting the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Bateman’s reputation rested on his masterly portrayal of embarrassment and apoplectic rage – in the 1920s he achieved a high level of public recognition for “The man who .......” series of caricatures in which hapless individuals experience the ultimate in public humiliation when their transgressions of unwritten social codes are cruelly exposed to howls of outrage, scorn and hilarity in equal measure. They were widely published on both sides of the Atlantic in magazines like The Tatler and Punch and republished in book form, on calendars, postcards and posters. Between the wars, Bateman was a wealthy and much sought after illustrator for whom advertising art was especially lucrative – he drew for Lucky Strike in the US and for Kensitas in UK. When he carried out this commission for Bar One his fortunes were at their lowest – his infinite variations on “The man who .......” theme had greatly outstripped the public appetite and his interminable battles with the Inland Revenue had left him bitter and impoverished to the point where he could have been the subject of one of his own drawings as “The man who drew working-class pursuits for Bar One”. To be fair, the Bar One drawings (of which there are many more than this) may have been dependent on a much used stock of characters but they still made a strong visual impression in the pages of Picture Post. Public interest revived in the 1960s and the quality of his best work continues to be appreciated – at the time of writing the Cartoon Museum in London is exhibiting a selection of his work, “The man who went mad on paper”. 

Postcard of the Day No. 54, Havana

This unusually radical composition exploits to the full the extraordinary visual impact of the overhead shop awnings with their cropped and fragmentary letters and numerals. Walker Evans visited Havana in 1933 on assignment for what was eventually published as The Crime of Cuba – this image would not have looked out of place in his portfolio. Obispo Street today is a pedestrianised thoroughfare lined with shops catering to tourists conspicuously lacking the air of quiet dignity that graces this postcard from 1916. 

Photoshop.1883

Three examples of Victorian photo retouching from 1883-84. The labels on the back tell us that these are photographic studio prints over-painted with artists’ oil colours – notes have been made about colour and tone to assist the Leeds-based painter. Mother, father and daughter have had their likenesses enhanced. Much more affordable than employing the services of a portrait painter and not necessarily greatly inferior to the product a local artist might have offered. Interesting to observe the different treatments – mother, thin-lipped and expressionless, breeding and parenting long in the past – father, paterfamilias, firm and resolute authority figure – daughter, every imperfection erased, the full Victorian glamour treatment to attract the eligible bachelor. The one idiosyncrasy they all share is possessing one eye significantly larger than the other. Family trait or artistic incompetence?

A Bridge in Cologne

There’s a great triumvirate at the heart of Cologne – the Hauptbahnhof with its mighty single-span cast iron roof, an intimidating heavyweight Gothic cathedral, 600 years in the making with the largest façade in the world and the Museum Ludwig, home to one of the most comprehensive collections of the art of Modernism. This is also the point at which the railway crosses the Rhine on the massive structure of the tied arch triple span Hohenzollern Bridge. The present bridge is essentially the third at this location although the two latter bridges (of 1911 and 1948) are of similar size and appearance. They were preceded by the smaller Dombrücke (also known as Feste brücke), completed in 1859. The 1911 Hohenzollern was blown up by the Wehrmacht in 1945 to obstruct the Allied advance. 

A great feature of the Hohenzollern is the provision of pedestrian footways, much enhancing the attraction of Cologne as an ideal city for bridge-walking – cross bridge A, walk to bridge B, cross that and walk to bridge C and carry on until the supply of bridges or energy runs out. Since the summer of 2008 thousands of young romantics have attached love padlocks to the bridge. The bridge operator, Deutsche Bundesbahn, was forced to back down on its plan to remove them, since when they’ve proliferated to the point where virtually no space remains. Meanwhile on the river bed there’s a long ribbon of keys to confound future generations of archaeologists. 

Super-sized equestrian figures of various Prussian Kaisers and Kings in full battledress stand, combat-ready on both sides of the bridge. Some appear to be survivors from the original 1859 bridge and remind us of the special value that military strategists place on lines of communication. This figure is Kaiser Friedrich III whose reign lasted a mere 99 days in 1888.