The Yorkshire Post Archives - The Skittish Library

Brilliant jobsworthiness here.

In 1949, Christmas and New Year’s Eve fell on Sundays, meaning they were subject to the byelaws that meant dancing must be finished by midnight. That also meant no singing Auld Lang Syne on the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, as that meant the festivities would spill over past 12am.

And so places like Leeds and Harrogate decreed that all dancing should stop at 11.45pm, everyone could sing Auld Lang Syne 15 minutes early and boom, you’re all wrapped up and out of the door for midnight.

Scarborough and Blackpool were no party to this madness, they made a special concession of later timings for the occasion.

I’m not sure why it’s noted that “festivities in the North” will be curtailed. Either it’s because this was The Yorkshire Post, and they didn’t give a monkeys what was happening in the South, or somehow the rules were different across the North-South divide. I haven’t been able to find out…

May my evening live up to this lovely home video of a house party on December 31st, 1949, where some very stylishly dressed people in Ontario are getting gently leathered. I particularly like the bowl of baubles being offered round the table, as if he might just be pissed enough to eat them.

And here’s a short film marking the turn of the year from 1949 to 1950 (with Auld Lang Syne as it sounded at 11.45pm.)

It’s more of this kind of thing today. Oh, why don’t I just go and live in 1937 if I like it so much?

Anyway. I do like the 1930s approach to chocolate advertising. They need a good, solid, sensible reason to eat it, not just because it tastes nice. I suppose Mars Bars with their slogan “A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play” is the last remnant of this kind of campaign.

The KitKat started life as Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp and was marketed in the 1930s as a nourishing meal substitute – here

The Aero bar is another piece of confectionary that has stood the test of time. Here it is in 1937, where it’s promoted not so much as a sweetie but a pioneer at the forefront of science. Yes, yes, it gives you energy, good for acrobats, blah, blah, but eating it is basically taking part in an experiment. With patent pending, they can reveal that “Science has given Aero a special texture that is different.” With a “unique quick digestive action”, “Aero stimulates the enzyme flow,” and dissolves fast so that “these particles get right into the bloodstream to give you the quick new energy you need.”

As with Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp, I find these advertising pitches work shamefully well on me. Who wouldn’t want to stuff yourself with a chocolate bar in the name of science? Now, where’s that Aero….