Category: War

Old Fashioned Cornbread at the Whistle Stop Cafe, 1993

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 28, 2017

My momma and Aunt Idgie ran a cafe. It wasn’t nothing more than a little pine-knot affair, but I’ll tell you one thing: we always ate and so did everybody else who ever came around there asking for food….and that was black and white. I never saw Aunt Idgie turn down a soul, and she was known to give a man a little drink if he needed it….” – Stump Threadgoode from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

I found my way into writing my initial thoughts on Brexit through an “old-fashioned” pork pie seen at a food fair on the dream-like day of the result, and being suddenly overwhelmed with visceral anger at my country. Yesterday, while making what Fannie Flagg calls “Old Fashioned Cornbread” from her 1993 Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook I started thinking about the tumultuous mess of Trump’s first week in office. The day which also marked Holocaust Remembrance Day (and a White House statement which managed to not mention the Jewish people by name), Trump signing an Executive Order shutting the US to all refugees for four months, and to Syrian refugees indefinitely, and pictures of Theresa May holding hands with Trump and flattering the Republican Party on their shared values with the Conservative Party. Her announcement that Trump is “100%” behind NATO looked like nothing more than Chamberlain’s “peace in our time”.

The similarities between Brexit and the rise of Trump are so parallel that it almost feels unreal, and to me as a history graduate, all I can see is a mountain of future essays tying together all the strands that brought us here. This period will become almost a cliche of essay titles, I’m sure. In a way, the events of the past year feel as if they have come out of the blue, a stone flung into a tranquil lake, but of course our progress to the point of wherever this takes us will look clearer in the history books. I’ve read enough history books to know that war is usually the conclusion of a set of circumstances like this, which feel so familiar and yet so unknown at the same time.

Trump is a schmuck – there is no better word I have come across to describe him. Part fool, part conman, and yes, the literal meaning of the word – dick – too. Especially that. A shyster involved with the Mafia, the Russian mob, fined $10 million in 2015 for money laundering, a thuggish litigation addict, fined for racist landlord discrimination, an admitted practitioner of sexual assault. A man who apparently has little concentration, cunning in spades but little intellect, and whose word means precisely nothing. Yet a man who thinks of himself as an intellectual giant, and who treats words rather as Humpty Dumpty did in Through the Looking Glass.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

That this can be also used to perfectly describe what will be Theresa May’s one appearance in the quoting dictionaries, “Brexit means Brexit”, is just more meat for those essays of the future. And what do we have to combat these words? A media which many are turning away from, choosing, incredibly, to believe instead that hyper-partisan news sources speak more unbiased truth. “Fake news” can be whatever disagrees with the individual’s personal stance now, and I think it’s a dangerous path indeed. Still, there’s going to be some astounding journalism on show in the years to come, and some damn good comedy too.

In such a short space of time, world events have been so interesting that the news has started to run anxiously though my head like an extra verse to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire:

Donald Trump, CIA, Vlad Putin, Theresa May,

Alec Baldwin, George Orwell, John Hurt, Mike Pence

Tiny tweeting hands, tiny crowds, dancing to “My Way”,

Refugees, Mexico, #Fuckingwall, maybe a fence?

A song from 1989, also pertinent as it’s the 80s I’m thinking of just as much as the 30s. The parallels to the 30s are obvious to anyone who’s studied the period – the popular movements, the distrust of the old orders, the shutting down of opponents. But in some ways Trump is the quintessential 80s man, the personification of all that garish money-splashing and selfishness that was one side of the decade. Not least because Bret Easton Ellis presciently made Trump Patrick Bateman’s hero in American Psycho, set during the 80s Wall Street boom.

“Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe”, a book and film I adore, looks at both eras, a depression-era tale told in flashback from the 80s. A tale which involves sentiment about America’s past, the Ku Klux Klan, racism, lesbianism and the strength of women. What with the Women’s March of a week ago, the largest single-day demonstration in American history, and involving nearly 5 million participants across the globe, this feels relevant. And the impossibly sad story of Emmett Till has reared its head from the history books with the revelation yesterday that the reason, small as it was, for the horrifying murder of a 14-year-old, wasn’t even true at all. And the order banning the acceptance of refugees to the US on Holocaust Remembrance Day, on the day that a Twitter account called St. Louis Manifest was tweeting the fates of all the passengers on the St Louis, the ship of German Jewish refugees turned away by the US in 1939, and who mostly perished in the Holocaust. The lessons from history hitting us in the face right now are almost unbearable.

In 1993 Fannie Flagg wrote in The Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook,

“Which brings me to the main reason I wanted so much to write this book. Lately it seems everyone is mad at someone, with groups on every corner, on the radio, on television, screaming about something or someone or other they don’t like. And there is so much anger in the air that you almost see it like a thick fog. In times like this, I think it is particularly important to try to be as calm and as happy as possible. And I don’t know about you, but I have always been happiest where food is concerned.”

The book was inspired by Fried Green Tomatoes fans asking whether her fictional cafe was based on a real place, which it was. It was The Irondale Cafe in Irondale, Alabama, set up in the 1930s by Flagg’s aunt Bess, who ran it for 50 years. A woman who loved feeding anyone and everyone, and, from her picture in the book, appears to be Idgie Threadgoode all over. It’s still there too, in downtown Irondale, right next to the train tracks, just like the Whistlestop Cafe. The recipes in this book come from the dishes traditionally served there.

Cornbread is one of those quintessential American food traditions which I had never tasted until my year spent going to school in the American South. I lived in Kentucky over 1992 and 1993, the same year this cookbook came out. I have extremely fond memories of iced tea, pimento cheese, buttermilk biscuits (what they call biscuits coming as a big surprise to me) and big blocks of squidgy American cheese you can microwave into a sauce. Less fond memories of the jello salad, lime jelly with vegetables in it, nonsensically served as a side dish. But I’ve never known hospitality like that I experienced in Kentucky. Such kindness and community. And I gained such a sense of enormity of the country, being hundreds of miles from the coast in all directions. It’s difficult for a Brit to get your head round the sheer scale of it all, and I never knew before how attached I was to the idea of being near-ish to the sea no matter where you are in the country.

Fannie Flagg’s cornbread recipe is best done old style in a skillet in the oven. There seems to be a lot of variants on cornbread depending where you are in the country, with an interesting take on the traditions here. Mine is yellow as white cornmeal is harder to come by in the UK. It contains no sugar – the article says this is the northern tradition, with the southern version always sweetened. Which doesn’t quite fit with this definitely Southern recipe, but never mind.

Old Fashioned Cornbread

“I swear, this is the best I ever tasted.”

4 cups cornmeal

2 tsp baking soda

4 egg, beaten

4 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup bacon drippings, melted (I used butter)

Preheat oven to 450F (220C)

Combine dry ingredients and make a well in the centre.

Combine eggs, buttermilk and bacon drippings, mixing well; add to cornmeal mixture and beat until smooth.

Heat a well-greased 12-inch cast-iron skillet in the preheated oven until very hot.

Pour batter into hot skillet; bake for 35-45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in centre comes out clean and top is golden brown.

Good luck, America.

Tags 1993, Brexit, cornbread recipe, Donald Trump, Fannie Flagg, Fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe, whistle stop cookbook

1900-1949 Adverts War Women

A Eugene Wave will make you brave, 1939

Post author By Estelle
Post date April 29, 2016

Manchester Evening News, 25th October, 1939

Britain had been preparing for conflict long before the actual declaration of war on 3rd September 1939. The government had started building warships from 1938, but a lot of thought was also given to how life would best work on the home front. It was clear that this war would be all-consuming, and so things like how food would be rationed, and whether evacuations from the larger cities would be needed were all considered. Right from the start, bombardment by the Luftwaffe was considered to be a threat which could begin at any time, and the Blitz of the UK began a year after the war started, in September 1940.

What’s interesting about this advert, for a “Eugene Wave” home perm, from only a few weeks into the war, is that it references the “midnight alarms” that were anticipated, as well as women’s “war-time jobs” that were immediately called for. The Eugene Wave was marketed as a way to continue your preparations for war on a personal appearance level.

“Midnight alarms are apt to catch you unawares and the wan light of dawn has no mercy. The rush and fatigue of your war-time job calls for special attention to your beauty. Now is the time to treat yourself to a Eugene Permanent Wave, the really permanent wave, which keeps its charming natural “shape” under the most difficult conditions.”

Tags 1939, advert, Eugene Wave, Second World War

1900-1949 War

Christmas Trees in the Trenches, 1914

Post author By Estelle
Post date December 25, 2015

It would all be over by Christmas, thought the lads signing up to fight in the Great War in the summer of 1914.

By the time Christmas came, the war was far from over, yet the unofficial Christmas truce between the German and British soldiers over the holiday period produced what must be one of the strangest Christmas experiences ever seen. Hostilities weren’t put on hold everywhere along the Western Front, but in some places on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day soldiers on both sides met each other in no man’s land, mainly in order to bury their dead soldiers who had been laying in the open since the battles of the previous week. Between the two sides there was talking, singing carols, and, famously, games of football.

A statue commemorating this moment appeared in Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church last week. It was on show for a week and now it’s moved, appropriately, to be displayed in Flanders in Belgium.

A letter from one of the soldiers who was there was published in The Dundee Courier in the new year of 1915. It vividly describes the horror, the mud, the social awkwardness of chatting with the enemy, the Christmas trees the German soldiers had erected in their trenches, and the laughter that lightened the most extreme of situations.

“Burying Dead in No Man’s Land.”

Broken Bodies of Friend and Foe Are Reverently Laid in Shallow Graves.

British and German Soldiers Chat During Armistice.

Reuter has received the following letter from a subaltern at the front:-

“Christmas Day dawned on an appropriately sparkling landscape. A truce had been arranged for the few hours of daylight for the burial of the dead on both sides who had been out in the open since the fierce night fighting of a week earlier. When I got out, I found a large crowd of officers and men, British and German, grouped around the bodies, which had already been gathered together and laid out in rows. I went along those dreadful ranks and scanned the faces, fearing at every step to recognise one I knew. It was a ghastly sight. They lay stiffly in contorted attitudes, dirty with frozen mud and powdered with rime.

The digging parties were already busy on the two big common graves, but the ground was hard and the work slow and laborious. In the intervals of superintending it, we chatted with the Germans, most of whom were quite affable, if one could not exactly call them friendly, which, indeed, was neither to be expected nor desired. We exchanged confidences about the weather and the diametrically opposite news from East Prussia.

The way they maintained the truth of their marvellous victories was positively pathetic. They had no doubt of the issue in the east, and professed to regard the position in the west as a definite stalemate. It was most amusing to observe the bland innocence with which they put questions, a truthful answer to which might have had unexpected consequences in the future.

On charming lieutenant of artillery was most anxious to know just where my dug-out, “The Cormorants”, was situated. No doubt he wanted to shoot his card, tied to a “whistling Willie”. I waved my hand airily over the next company’s line, giving him the choice of various heaps in the rear. Time drew on, and it was obvious that the burying would not be half finished with the expiration of the armistice agreed upon, so we decided to renew it the following morning. At the set hour everyone returned to the trenches, and when the last man was in the lieutenant and I solemnly shook hands, saluted, and marched back ourselves.

They left us alone that night to enjoy a peaceful Christmas. I forgot to say that the previous night – Christmas Eve – their trenches were a blaze of Christmas trees, and our sentries were regaled for hours with the traditional Christmas songs of the Fatherland. Their officers even expressed annoyance the next day that some of these trees had been fired on, insisting they were part almost of a sacred rite.

On Boxing Day, at the agreed hour, on a prearranged signal being given, we turned out again. The output of officers of higher rank on their side was more marked, and the proceedings were more formal in consequence. But while the gruesome business of burying went forward there was still a certain interchange of pleasantries. The German soldiers seemed a good-tempered, amiable lot, mostly peasants from the look of them.

One remarkable exception, who wore the Iron Cross and addressed us in slow but faultless English, told us he was Professor of Early German and English Dialects at a Westphalian University. He had a wonderfully fine head. They distributed cigars and cigarettes freely among our digging party, who were much impressed by the cigars. I hope they were not disillusioned when they came to smoke them. Meanwhile the officers were amusing themselves by taking photographs of mixed groups.

The digging completed, the shallow graves were filled in, and the German officers remained to pay their tribute of respect while our chaplain read a short service. It was one of the most impressive things I have ever witnessed. Friend and foe stood side by side, bare-headed, watching the tall, grave figure of the padre outlined against the frosty landscape as he blessed the poor, broken bodies at his feet. Then with more salutes we turned and made our way back to our respective ruts.

Elsewhere along the line, I hear our fellows played the Germans at football on Christmas Day. Our own pet enemies remarked that they would like a game, but as the ground in our part is all root crops and much cut up by ditches and as, moreover, we had not got a football, we had to call it off.

That night the frost turned abruptly to rain. The trenches melted like butter on the fire, and all was slime and water instead of good, hard surface. A shuffle of company lines has now given me a captain as stable companion at “The Cormorants”, a gay young soul, with a penchant for building improvements. He constructed a top-hole fireplace inside with a real chimney and an up-to-date sloping fire-back, and utilised the last hour of the armistice to make the roof seaworthy with an ingenious arrangement of derelict waterproof sheets. We had a homely evening, and towards midnight were blissfully rejoicing in our dry spot amid the welter of mud.

Suddenly a horrible crackling like two or three clips of cartridges firing off made us jump. It was not a German infernal machine, as our first intuition told us, but merely a centre prop of the dug-out and the beam it supported had given way. The roof sagged threateningly three inches from our heads. A hasty retreat with a few valuables was beaten, and a digging party put on to clear off the earth to save a complete collapse. In the course of the next night the carpentry part was made as firm as a rock, but the waterproofing was a farce, and we never knew a dry moment till we were relieved. It was a lesson in trying to be too comfortable, but as usual, when things seem quite hopeless all we could do was to indulge in shrieks of laughter.
January 1, 1915.

A Happy New Year to you! We are awakened in the middle of the night by a frantic outburst of musketry. We instinctively thrust out a hand towards our boots and gazed apprehensively at the door, expecting every moment the arrival of a messenger to summon us instanter to the trenches to repel a furious attack. But nothing happened, and presently we relapsed into slumber. This morning we heard it was merely a mutual feu-de-joie to celebrate the New Year.”

Tags 1914, Christmas, Christmas armistice, First World War, Liverpool

1900-1949 Adverts War

Kill That Rat, 1941

Post author By Estelle
Post date September 12, 2015

A public information advert on how to get rid of rats during the Second World War. They were eating food supplies and so “were doing Hitler’s work”

Aberdeen Journal, 19th March 1941

I find myself quite uncomfortable with this advert. I suppose because this wasn’t a million miles away from German anti-Jewish propaganda itself, which used the rat analogy. The fact that the rat has a little Hitler face instead almost emphasizes that for me. I wonder if that reference was intentional at all?

Tags Hitler, public information, rats, Second World War

1900-1949 Ephemera War

(Grand) Dad’s Army, 1939

I love it when I can link something from one of my old books or pieces of ephemera to some current story. This one is all about Dad’s Army, new and old. You might have seen the trailer for the new film recently. Here it is.

Despite being a history buff, I never much liked Dad’s Army when I first saw it on TV as a teenager. It wasn’t my sort of humour, I thought, although then as now I still had a massive affection for Clive Dunn – or “Grandad” as I always thought of him. Here he is, singing his famous song – and I really can’t believe that at this point, he was a mere 51 years of age:

Watching the series later on though, I appreciated it a lot more. The writing, the performances – it was a class act. My first thought when hearing about the new film was a big “Why?” and it still is, really. But….what a cast! Toby Young, Bill Nighy and Michael Gambon are enough to make me put the film on my must-see list, when it comes out next February.

And this is where my (real) Grandad comes in. I’ve blogged quite a bit about his wartime experiences and ephemera but I haven’t posted this piece up before. It’s the menu and programme for the British Army Public Relations Christmas Party, 1939. As my Grandad was an official driver for Richard Dimbleby, he came into contact with such journalistic-type events. There is no information on where this meal was actually held, and I haven’t been able to find out more online, but I presume it was somewhere near the Maginot Line as that was where Grandad and the British Expeditionary Force were at that time.

The menu is rather impressive, or at least maybe it sounds more impressive than it is, as it’s written in French. I have to say that Pommes Vapeur sounds rather grander than what I believe is actually “Boiled potatoes”. Plum Pudding aux Feux Follets is intriguing. As far as I can tell “feux follets” is French for “Will-o’-the Wisp” or fireflies. So maybe this means plum pudding set alight in the traditional (English) way.

However, the most interesting part to me is the entertainment. “The Crimson Cocoanut” was a little play dramatized for the occasion, and was particularly notable for two facts – firstly, that it was rather appropriately written by the Director of Public Relations at the War Office. This was John Hay Beith, but his pen name was Ian Hay – as well as a soldier, he was a novelist, playwright, essayist and historian, and adapted The 39 Steps, among other things. He wrote the play in 1913 though, not especially for this event.

Secondly, the play was produced by Arnold Ridley, Officier de Champ at this time, and later to be Dad’s Army’s Private Godfrey. His Army post translates as “Conducting Officer”, and it was his job to supervise the journalists visiting the front line in France. He had a hell of a time on the battlefield. He was in the First World War, and sustained dreadful injuries – his left hand was badly damaged in the Battle of the Somme and left virtually useless, he was hit on the head by the butt of a German soldier’s rifle which led to him suffering blackouts over the rest of his life, and he was bayonetted in the groin. Bayonetted in the groin. It wasn’t enough to put him off signing up for the army as the Second World War began, but he was discharged in health grounds in 1940. Pleasingly, he joined the Home Guard for real for the rest of the war.

I found out that the University of Bristol has his showbusiness ephemera collection – the Arnold Ridley archive, although it is not especially accessible at the moment. I found a copy of this menu and programme on there too.

My mum tells me that Grandad used to love watching Dad’s Army. But when she gave me this programme she didn’t realise that a cast member was mentioned on it. She doesn’t remember him mentioning Arnold Ridley as someone he was ever acquainted with, so I wonder if he even knew of this connection.

(As an aside, I have to say that the purveyor of the comic song has an excellently suitable name – Bugler Dipple.)

Tags Arnold Ridley, dad's army, Grandad, Ian Hay, Second World War

1900-1949 Adverts War

Cure for Lice in the Trenches, 1915

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 19, 2015

Lanarkshire Daily Record, 9th October 1915

The trenches of the First World War were pretty hellish – and made worse by the fact that you were also likely to become infested with lice – “Our soldiers greatest enemy in the trenches.” So here’s a cure for them advertised in the local newspapers at the time. The adverts are directed towards family members to buy for their soldiers and then post them to the trenches. It’s “Somerville’s Asiatic Body Cord”, which apparently “Exterminates all body lice and prevents them lodging on the person or underclothing.”

The lice were the potential cause of huge problems. Apart from the irritation of the bites, they could also carry typhus and other diseases. The “Asiatic Body Cord” was based on an Indian folk medicine cure. It consisted of a woollen cord tied around the waist, and which was impregnated with 2 parts mercury ointment and 1 part beeswax. The mercury ointment was presumably toxic to the lice, but it could also be toxic to the soldier too with prolonged use. “The skin absorbs its germicide properties, and these are carried to all parts of the body” says one advertisement, which isn’t great if the germicide is mercury.

At the height of production, 120,000 body cords were produced per year.

Edinburgh Evening News, 18th December 1916

“Far superior and more effective than any insect-powder”, the advert says in relation to what was probably its main rival – Keating’s Powder, as well as Maw’s Antiverm Trench Powder.

“Keating’s Powder” was a more long-standing insect powder, used in Victorian kitchens too to rid the house of beetles and the like. This advert implies the fact that it’s been around a while with its “Business as usual!!-Beetles as usual!!-Killed as usual!!” It contained pyrethrum, an insecticide found in chrysanthemum flowers.

Tags 1915, First World War, lice, pharmaceuticals, trenches

1900-1949 War

What a Nerve He Has, 1946

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 17, 2015

Lanarkshire Sunday Post, 3rd February 1946

An intriguing letter from The Lanarkshire Sunday Post in 1946.

So, the Second World War is not long over, and a Kirkcaldy housewife, Mrs A. G. Forsyth, receives a letter out of the blue from an ex-Italian soldier. (At this point I’m totally imagining Mrs Forsyth looking like Terry Jones as a Monty Python “pepperpot”, unfairly.)

Never mind how the Italian ex-soldier got her address, but it was a heart-rending plea.

“After five years of war I am remained without anything but the eyes to weep, and a maiming of more than 50 per cent. as certificated by the document lieing by. Not knowing how to carry on my life and support the expenses of my family, I apply to your noble, great, and generous heart, praying for a financial help limited to your possibilities.

Or better, if you could present me with a small ice cream machine with your name cut on it, as it is very seldom to get one in Italy, and also very dear, more than 150 thousand lires and I cannot afford to buy due to my poverty…”

Because ice cream machines were plenteous and cheap in 1946 Kirkcaldy, of course.

It’s got to be a scam, hasn’t it? But a bit of an odd one. Mrs Forsyth thought so. She “wonders if other readers had got similar letters”, and dismissed the whole thing with “I know the British are considered soft by foreigners, but we’re not as soft as all that!”

It reminds me a bit of the Nigerian 419 scams of today, although, to be fair, there’s nothing promised to the recipient of the letter apart from a feeling of goodwill. Still, there’s nothing new under the sun, as the con tricks of 100 years ago detailed by Harry Houdini show – here.

Tags 1946, scam, Second World War, The British Newspaper Archive

1900-1949 Adverts Victorian War

Rude Archives

Firstly, sorry for this post.

Actually, this is the kind of thing that annoying hashtag #sorrynotsorry is for, I suppose. But sorry to those on my mailing list who may be looking at this at work, and also for those not keen on swearing. For you, I will leave a decency gap, and a little extract from Blackadder III’s “Ink and Incapability” that pretty much sums up my investigations for today. But it’s my birthday today so indulge me.

Samuel Johnson has just written his Dictionary and the Prince Regent has been looking up some words in it….

Samuel Johnson: So, ahem, tell me, sir, what words particularly interested you?

Prince Regent: Oh, er, nothing… Anything, really, you know…

Samuel Johnson: Ah, I see you’ve udnerlined a few (takes dictionary, reads): `bloomers’; `bottom’; `burp’; (turns a page) `fart’; `fiddle’; `fornicate’?

Prince Regent: Well…

Samuel Johnson: Sir! I hope you’re not using the first English dictionary to look up rude words!

Blackadder: I wouldn’t be too hopeful; that’s what all the other ones will be used for.

Yes, I’ve been looking up rude words in the British Newspaper Archive. Obviously, being newspapers, they aren’t chock-a-block with intentional swears. But there’s a few anachronistic words that appear in a non-sweary way, at the time. “Wanker” being one. Here’s a few clippings that made me giggle quite a lot.

Well, this is sad – an article about casualties from the First World War. But it’s livened up a bit by the fact that one of the casualties is called General Wanker von Dankenechweil.

Then there’s this proprietor of glasses in 1863 – “Wankers”. They are keen to help innkeepers provide the correct measures and avoid prosecution.

But, my favourite – this 1924 account of the trial of a Frenchman called Vaquier. He was accused of murdering a pub landlord by poison. Hopefully not because of his short measures.

He was unsuccessfully appealing his death sentence. His response – “I protest because I am French”.

It was revealed that the alias he used while buying the poison was “Wanker”. Whether this was because “Vaquier” isn’t a million miles away, or the fact that the landlord’s pub was called “The Blue Anchor”, or that he really just was openly proud to be a wanker, we’ll never know.

Best sub-header ever.

Tags 1863, 1914, 1924, Blackadder, swearing, The British Newspaper Archive, wankers

1900-1949 1950-1999 Adverts Victorian War Women

Edwards’ Harlene Hair Products, 1897-1951

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 5, 2015
1 Comment on Edwards’ Harlene Hair Products, 1897-1951

A special request today from Tasker Dunham – a look Edwards’ Harlene hair products and, as Mr Dunham put it, the “impossibly luxuriant hair and beard growth” they used to illustrate their advertisements.

Launching straight into the 1897 campaign below, you can see what he means. Hair of Rapunzel-like proportions is promised from Harlene by a woman in a dress that seems slightly indecent by Victorian standards. Plus, there’s miracle preparations for curing baldness and restoring grey hair to be had. “Scurf” is also cured by this wonder product – not a word you hear much these days, but as far as I can see it seems to mean much the same as “dandruff”. Perhaps there were subtle distinctions between the two?

Also in 1897, there was this rather artistic advert, which reminds me a bit of Holman Hunt’s painting, The Awakening Conscience. Except, it’s all proper and decent in this advert as it’s merely a long-tressed maiden advising a vicar on a baldness cure.

Moving on to 1916 – Edwards’ had a series of war-themed adverts to bring them bang up to date. Here, “a war-time gift to the grey-haired” is promised in the form of a free sample of the colour restorer “Astol” for their hair. Note, that “dye” is a dirty word – these products are claimed not to be dyes, but true restorers of whatever colour your hair was originally. I’m sure I remember that the “Just For Men” hairdye used to claim something similar even in the 1990s – can anyone else vouch for this? Your hair would magically restore itself to any colour you like as long as it was “tobacco brown”.

Here Edwards’ plays its part in making women feel insecure about their natural ageing. Grey-haired women look on in envy at their brown-haired sister.

Astol is not a dye or a stain, remember. This kind of cosmetics advertising is satirised in the book “The Crimson Petal and the White”, incidentally, which is an absolutely wonderful novel that immerses you in a Victorian world. I haven’t read anything apart from Dickens that has made me feel so actually part of the nineteeth century.

Edwards’ then introduced a new method for hair-improval. Here in 1918, we see the “Harlene Hair Drill” advertised, which went on to be used in their advertising for many years afterwards. The “Hair Drill” consisted of a series of steps to be done each day, which apparently took no longer than two minutes – although as you had to send off to see what they actually were, I have no idea what it consisted of. All I know is that you had absolutely no excuse not to be following “the lead of the navy, the army and the air force” , who were all at it, of course. Incredibly, the claim is made that “Even in the trenches our soldiers like to keep their hair “fit” by the “drill”.”

“Dandruff makes your hair fall out.” Really?

You’ll never snag a soldier with that grey hair, ladies.

More free offers in 1918, and more flowing mermaid hair to boot. This offer is being made “in view of the present prevalence of Hair Defects.”

More amazing hair here.

And here Edwards’ Harlene steps right into a lawsuit, if the Trade Descriptions Act had existed in 1920 (but it didn’t until 1968). Somehow mid-length frizzy hair is transformed into waist-length ringlets as if by magic. Although the friend with the bobbed hair is much more fashionable – I bet Edwards’ were seething at the 1920s fashion for shingled hair.

They were good with their free gifts, though.

Lanarkshire Sunday Post, 30th January 1921

Moving onto the 1950s now – and Edwards’ Harlene advertising has become much more realistic, using an actual photograph this time, of achievable hair. However, scurf was apparently still a thing in the 1950s.

Yorkshire Evening Post, 3rd September 1951

The proprietor of the company, Reuben George Edwards (originally Reuben Goldstein), had died in 1943, and in 1963 the company was taken over by Ashe Chemical. I see that Ashe Chemical were also the makers of “Gitstick Concentrated Crayon Insecticide” – and hello, future blog post!

Tags 1897, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1951, advert, Edwards Harlene, Hair products, women