Author: Estelle

I am Estelle, a small person who lives in Liverpool. I love all books apart from "The World According to Clarkson". Also very keen on comedy, cooking, octopods and other small people.

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1900-1949 Ephemera War

Remembrance Week – George VI Thanks the Children of Britain, 1946

King George VI certificate, 1946

Following on from yesterday’s post, in 1946 the children of Britain got their own “Thank you and well done”.

This was a printed letter from King George VI, sent to all schoolchildren at the end of the Second World War, recognising the fact that the whole of the country, children included, played their part.

“For you have shared in the hardships and dangers of a total war and you have shared no less in the triumph of the Allied Nations”.

The one I have belonged to a little girl called Diana Morcom, wherever she is now….

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1900-1949 Ephemera War

Remembrance Week – Thank You and Well Done, 1945

May 1945

If you Kept Calm and Carried On, you were rewarded with a Thank You and Well Done. It’s the British way, what more do you need?

Well, maybe a cup of tea and a biscuit.

This was awarded to my Grandad, Driver Allan Pickup, by Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey, Commander of the Second Army (and who was, excitingly, nicknamed “Bimbo”).

May 1945
May 1945
Categories
1900-1949 War

Remembrance Week – London Blitzed, 1944

London for Everyman, William Kent, 1944 edition

This must surely be the most heartbreaking tourist guide there is.

London for Everyman by William Kent was a guide to the sights of London, first published in 1933. By the 1944 edition, the Capital was forever altered by the Blitz, and pages of amendments were necessary to detail what no longer existed, what had been closed for the forseeable future, and what had been moved for safety.

This edition belonged to one Private E. O. Leichman, number W/280854, who must have bought it for a look around London, while he was on leave.

Here’s all the updates for 1944. Note that Paternoster Row had been bombed out of existence by this point – goodbye to the venerable old publishing centre, and to Madame Vastra and the Paternoster Gang (they lived at number 13, you know) – https://skittishlibrary.co.uk/the-paternoster-gang-and-the-case-of-the-victorian-clickbait/

Categories
1900-1949 War

Remembrance Week – The Queen Knits Socks, 1940

PTO Magazine, 1940

The future Queen Elizabeth helped the war effort in 1940, knitting a pair of socks for one “lucky” soldier. And another Tommie got perhaps a slightly racier pair, knitted by Princess Margaret Rose.

From PTO Magazine, 1940.

PTO-socks

Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Ephemera War

Remembrance Week – The Radio Times, 1940

The Radio Times, 1940

There’ll be more on Sunday from my Grandad’s copy of The Radio Times from 1940, but for now I can’t resist posting this, THE GREATEST ADVERT OF ALL TIME.

The Radio Times, 1940
The Radio Times, 1940

Notice that the Laxative company is called Kruschen? That’s a bit German-sounding isn’t it? Well, on the previous page a rival laxative company makes a suspiciously big deal out of their Britishness (and deliciousness too, notice how Kruschen made “tasting nice” sound like something for namby-pambies and not for real medicines?)

The Radio Times, 1940
The Radio Times, 1940

Incidentally, look at this Kruschen advert from 1933 and the difference in gender-specific advertising. For women, it’s all about weight loss:
kruschen salts

I can’t help but be reminded of Monty Python’s Most Awful Family in Britain Award:

“The stuff I liked was that stuff they gave us before the war, what was it – Wilkinson’s Number 8 Laxative Cereal. Phew. That one went through you like a bloody Ferrari.”

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1900-1949 War

Remembrance Week – Might and Main, 1942

Might and Main, 1942

Here’s the complete booklet of Might and Main – Fighting ships of land, sea and air.

The complete lack of corpses and casualties in this 1942 booklet makes these action pictures of tanks, planes and ships utterly thrilling, pure Boys Own territory. Something to help kids picture what their dads, their uncles, their brothers were up to while they were gone.

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1900-1949 Food & Drink War

Remembrance Week – George Bernard Shaw’s Vegetarian Plea, 1940

PTO Magazine, 1940

This week I’m going to be posting up bits and pieces I have dating from the Second World War, in honour of Remembrance Sunday on 9th November. Of course, this is particularly poignant this year, being 100 years since the start of the First World War.

And on Sunday I’ll be posting some of my own family history – my Grandad’s memorabilia, stuffed inside the most sinister book I own.

Today’s piece is from PTO Magazine, 1940. George Bernard Shaw was a devoted vegetarian, and in a letter to the Daily Express, he pleads that veggies are given sufficient rations, lest they lose their singular ferociousness:

PTO Magazine, 1940
PTO Magazine, 1940
Categories
Victorian Victorian Slang

Victorian Slang of the Week – Fly the Kite

The Slang Dictionary, 1865

If you google it, it seems there are a huge number of meanings for the slang term “Fly the kite”. There’s two on this page of The Slang Dictionary – the first refers to obtaining money on (usually worthless) cheques.

The second is the one that fascinates me, though:
“Fly the kite”, To evacuate from a window – term used in padding-kens, or low lodging houses”

Erm. So your, shall we say, number one is the string and you, up there at the window, are the kite. I presume your average low lodging house wasn’t exactly well equipped with privies, and maybe even chamber pots were too luxurious for these dives?

Slang-Dictionary-1865-flythekite

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1900-1949 Ephemera

Ephemera – to keep or not to keep?

Leatherhead bus guide, 1920

I might have mentioned it before, but Ebay ephemera (ideally 19th century to 1940s) is my new guilty pleasure. How much pleasure and interest these little scraps of paper, flimsy magazines and general oddities give me – and they’ve made me wonder about the modern day ephemera that surrounds us. I mean, I am not very interested in keeping a current bus timetable for the the bus I get to work every day. And yet, here’s a Leatherhead bus guide from 1920 that I love, despite never having been there.

I’m going to post all this stuff up eventually, just because, where else would all these bits and pieces be on the internet if not here? But what’s to be done with all the similar papery stuff that I happily chuck in the bin in the attempt to prevent my house appearing on one of those hoarding programmes where one old lady is living in a space 3 feet square, and the rest of the house is home to piles of newspapers and cat food tins? I think I might have to start a scrapbook for the interesting or notable things we’ve done or seen each year. Maybe one day my kids or just some guy on Virtual Reality Ebay will be interested…..

Categories
Victorian Women

Victorian Child-Rearing Theory, 1891

Mothers Companion, 1891

The Victorians attitude to children could be pretty strict, as seen in a rather heart-breaking little section of The Mother’s Companion of 1891. It’s written with a loving tone – these parents adored their kids. And yet how far removed from today is the idea that a parent should withhold all praise from their children, for fear of making them conceited?

The heart-breaking bit isn’t really the piece itself, which is pretty cuddly. But it’s the fact that it actually needs to tell parents to admire their children’s achievements that is shocking to a twenty-first century parent – “Of course, I do not mean too much praise, but a little now and then is good for everyone.”

And I do like this sentimental childhood bit – “Flood them with sunshine from your own hearts, and they will give it back to you with interest.”