After last week’s news that the advertising watchdog is to crack down on sexist stereotypes here’s two examples of how it used to be done in the days when not an eyebrow was raised. There’s a seasonal flavour here as well as a strange symmetry in that both adverts feature three generations of females whose existence is entirely subordinate to the unchallenged patriarch. What could be more generous than the purchase of a labour-saving device to ease the burden of toil on the housekeeper? Sentimental, heartfelt tribute is paid to each individual – wife, mother and daughter – who gaze back at us from their respectful and dignified portraits. Each will be blessed with a new vacuum cleaner plus a little more free time to devote to the welfare of the bountiful head of household. Win, win. In the service of Max Factor, we have a trio of submissive females, lips puckered, awaiting the approval and osculatory advances of the unseen father figure, his customary odour of alcohol and tobacco wondrously masked by a generous application of Deodorant Cologne by Max Factor. Any woman knows what to expect when she gives him the best. In the interests of creating consumer demand, invoking sexist stereotypes was an easy fix in a time when gender hierarchies were carved in unassailable granite. Two generations of change may have passed since then but it’s not difficult to find tribunes of the people, desperate to preserve what remains of these hierarchies and find a way back to the ancient certainties.
Deep in the folds of the Mendip Hills, yet only a few miles from the cosmopolitan liberal elite stronghold of Bristol stands a Grade II* listed country house. On a chill winter evening the red sandstone glows in the moonlight – a Special Edition Gothic Revival Range Rover is parked on the gravel drive. To step inside is to travel back in time to the 1850s when Victorian Britain’s economic and military power was the envy of the world. In the world that the rest of us inhabit the Victorian ascendancy unravelled over the next 150 years but inside the clock was stopped and nothing had changed since the Crystal Palace stood in Hyde Park. In the inner hall, wooden panelling and Pugin wallpaper echo to the distant sounds of jaunty choral music. Approaching the inner sanctum the music becomes identifiable as the Act 1 Finale to Iolanthe. A fastidiously pin-striped seated figure taps an elegantly shod foot to the stirring rhythms of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Eton Trinity Oxford Parliament!
Into Parliament he shall go!
Backed by their supreme authority,
He'll command a large majority!
Into Parliament, into Parliament,
Parliament, Parliament, he shall go!
Into Parliament he shall go!
Into Parliament, into Parliament,
Parliament, Parliament, he shall go!
Into Parliament he shall go!
Eton Trinity Oxford Parliament!
For this is no ordinary person of the sort his colleagues refer to as the inspiration for their mission in politics. We are in the presence of the much esteemed Member of Parliament for North East Somerset – the nation’s favourite undertaker and a man for whom the Twentieth Century still lies in the future. In front of him is a list of Christmas shopping on which he attempts to focus. But the mind keeps wandering back to the year just ending. Moggmentum had struck a chord with the great British public. It was not inconceivable that in 2018 a troubled nation might turn to him in its hour of need. The only cloud on the horizon was garrulous Pope Francis and his irritating obsession with social justice. Compassion (good) can so easily mutate into sentimental egalitarianism (bad) and misguided philanthropy (worse). Perhaps the next Pontiff could be recruited from Goldman Sachs or the Legatum Institute. Back to the matter in hand – as well as the staff and old chums like Gilbert & George, there are 6 amusingly named children and the Lawful Wedded Spouse to shop for. Most importantly, there is Nanny whose 50 years of service demands the utmost in personal attention. With the assistance of the Christmas gift recommendations from the Catholic Herald and the Daily Telegraph, ideas begin to form:
Opus Dei leather case for iPhone X Steve Bannon Devotional Rosary St Sebastian Gorka Tea Cosy Roger Scruton Book of Favourite Prayers Brexit Militant Combat Rosary The Appleby Atlas of Tax-favourable Jurisdictions William Morris Dartboard Somerset Capital Management 1851 Desk Diary St Ignatius Loyola Crystal Decanter I-Spy Book of Saboteurs Vatican Guide to Bitcoin Indulgences
The choices quickly made, the orders dispatched and the tracks of the Somerset & Dorset Railway will soon be humming beneath the wheels of the speeding parcel wagons destined for Midsomer Norton whence the horse-drawn conveyances of Hermes and DHL shall sally forth. In the kitchen, Cook loads the William Burges dishwasher while upstairs the children stand in line for a fingernail inspection. To be followed by a quick test on the Wall Street closing prices and a bedtime reading from the Ann Coulter audio-book, Atlas Shrugged. And finally to bed, to dream, to dream of the Sacred Chalice of Brexit, fashioned by the Lord to restore the nation to its rightful inheritance. A new dawn where men of wealth and status can exercise their entrepreneurial talents for self-enrichment without let, hindrance, taxation or regulation. Steam locomotives will again rule the rails and Brunel’s Broad Gauge will be reinstated. Ordnance Survey maps will be recalibrated to a scale of an inch per mile. Global Britain will lead the world in steam powered robots and driverless motorcycles. Opportunities will abound for disaster capitalists. Freedom and serfdom will become one and the same. Yeomen of England unite, you have nothing to lose but your supply chains.
This Meccano Magazine cover from December 1954 is a perfect evocation
of the mid-1950s. Soberly dressed small boys stare at a window display of pristine
toys and models. These are the wonders of the age, beyond the reach of all but
the most generously indulged child. For the rest they remain unattainable. Childish
exuberance was greatly frowned upon – the solemn duty of every child was to
grow up with the greatest possible speed and the least possible fuss. These
were serious times – excitement and frivolity were in short supply where they
weren’t actively discouraged. Recreational activities were either sporting or
educational – entertainment in any but the most modest amounts was undesirable,
an irresponsible diversion from the business of forming a new generation of
productive economic units. Note how the boys are wearing scaled down versions
of their fathers’ outfits in coarse woven fabrics – gabardine, tweed and worsted.
(One of the few pleasures to be had observing the latest infant generation of
the House of Windsor is their adherence to this anachronistic dress code.) Physical
comfort was held in low esteem so textiles with the power to irritate the skin
were broadly held to be character-forming. Caps were worn to make young people
more easily identifiable, especially in instances of antisocial behaviour.
Among the most serious offences a child could commit was to neglect to wear a
cap. As the years advance the tendency to romanticise the experiences of
childhood marches in step. Nostalgia begets amnesia and the discomforts are
forgotten. Sadistic schoolmasters, school bullies, knitted swimming costumes,
itchy baggy underwear, damp and unheated homes and a diet of overcooked
flavourless stodge all fade away in the diffuse glow of the lost Golden Age
that never happened.
The first post-war Christmas in America and the rush is on to reconnect the customer with their peace-time duty to consume. American industries found it much easier to adapt the production lines to cater for the consumer than their British counterparts where resilience had been shattered by the ravages of war and a desperate shortage of labour, compounded by decades of under-investment. It would take the UK economy a decade to recover to the point the US economy reached in 12 months. This small selection features some great illustrators, including Haddon Sundblom’s exuberant pageant of blissful parenthood for Coca-Cola and Constantin Alajolov’s witty sequence of multiple Santas for Arrow Shirts. The big Christmas crowd pleasing movie of 1945 was “The Bells of St. Mary’s” with Bing Crosby (Father O’Malley) and Ingrid Bergman (Sister Mary Benedict) – a sentimental tale based in a Roman Catholic inner-city school. For those whose taste ran to darker themes, both “Scarlet Street” and “Spellbound” were released in December 1945.
It looks like being a Wonga Christmas here in Britain. Blizzards of iPads and Play Station 4s will blanket the land, mostly paid for with payday loans or compensation payments for PPI mis-selling. Television remains the principle engine of consumption, alternately flattering, imploring or deceiving the viewers into parting with far more cash than they actually possess in order to give every appearance of boundless munificence. Looking back to the pages of Saturday Evening Posts from December 1946 we find that advertisers were deploying many of the techniques of persuasion that survive to this day as they scrap for a share of all the excess dollars that swill around every December. The example above from the insurance industry cultivates the sense of high anxiety and desperation that typifies Christmas for many. Tis the Season for Litigation – all the perils of Christmas cheer are graphically described here. Who hasn’t brained their neighbour with a snow shovel or entertained their guests with collapsing chairs? Compensation culture was already in full swing in 1946 America. Gift suggestions form the larger part of these ads and Christmas imagery is prominent. Where Santa puts in a personal appearance, the illustrators struggled to achieve a consistent standard of joviality and some distinctly ambiguous facial expressions can be seen. The tobacco industry was in its full majesty, marketing a wide range of gift packs and suborning the medical profession to testify to the benefits of smoking. A singular curiosity is the absence of alcoholic drink advertising, suggesting that the Post reader of 1946 was an abstemious creature, unwilling to see their favourite reading matter contaminated by publicity for the Devil’s cocktails.
The railroads and airlines battle for supremacy in the “We
get ’em home” category. The airlines would decisively win the battle in the
next decade.
Attractive gift packs and a recommendation from
the family doctor would surely be enough to eliminate any lingering health
doubts on the part of smokers.
For men – shirts, ties, socks and pens, and for the lucky,
lucky lady in your life, a shiny new Never-lift electric iron. Housework has
never been so much fun.
The full-page Santas often had an unsettling air of menace
about them.
Food and drink promotions relied on tableaux of seasonal
euphoria, although Campbell’s Soup went for a less elevating message stressing
the convenience of the product.
The home comforts and safety category was a
brave attempt to sell some banal products by linking them to seasonal
extravagance.
The man who covets a Higgins Camp Trailer may have unrealistic
expectations but who could fail to be tempted by the graphic representation of
such a thrilling range of activities?
Seventy years ago Christmas was a grim wartime affair occurring just 3 weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The comforting, sugary pleasures of Bird’s Custard were in short supply and the three birds are marching off to war with a jaunty but resolute air, wearing their service caps with pride. The three birds were first conscripted by Bird’s Custard in 1929 and in times of peace were tireless in serenading the product as shown below. To this day their chubby well-fed likenesses can be seen, gracing the pack in any supermarket – the McKnight Kauffer-like angularity of their early years has long since departed.
After yesterday’s visit to the dark side of Christmas we turn to something a little lighter in both tone and hue. Refrigerated rainfall, popularly and more concisely known as snow is much in our minds at the present. This is day 8 of life under a covering of 20 cm. in the balmy South West so on this slender pretext, images of snow excavated from the archive follow below. At the top is W Heath Robinson, with a typically inventive piece on the cover of The Humorist in 1938. Below is a Good Housekeeping cover from 1945 presented in isometric splendour by the dashingly named Clixby Watson. Next is a cosy Alfred Bestall cover for the 1949 Rupert Annual from the days when it was issued in a thin card wrapper. This Year Next Year, published in 1937 supplies the image of a snowman from the incomparable Harold Jones, a true master when it came to conveying the uniquely English discomforts of wind and weather and the way they shaped our landscape and cultural traditions. The snow plough is the endpaper from Virginia Lee Burton’s Katy and the Big Snow (1943) where female stereotypes were challenged by naming the snowplough Katy. The cross-cultural encounter in the frozen wastes is from another favourite illustrator Clifford Webb (more about him here) – North Pole Before Lunch, published in 1936. The last image is a Bruegel pastiche painted by Peter Brookes from about 1980. Brookes had a genius for creatively reworking the Old Masters and was a regular illustrator for Radio Times in the 1970s and last time I looked, still working as a political cartoonist for The Times.
