Cannabis was made illegal in the UK in 1928 for general use, although you could grow your own marijuana plants until 1964, and doctors were still able to prescribe cannabis for medical purposes until 1971. That year The Misuse of Drugs Act brought in the classification of dangerous drugs as either A, B or C – cannabis was class B, then briefly class C between 2004 and 2009, only to bounce back to B from 2009 onwards.
In the nineteenth century, though, it was a different story. You could find many pharmaceutical adverts for cannabis-containing remedies, such as Grimault’s cannabis cigarettes for asthma. Strange as the idea of smoking to help asthma may seem, this isn’t a medical treatment relegated to the past. The benefits or otherwise of using cannabis as a way of relieving asthma are being debated vociferously right now across the Internet, with official medical sites advising that smoking cannabis is a Bad Idea, versus vast numbers of cannabis-friendly blogs stating the exact opposite.
Bedfordshire Mercury, 2nd November 1872
Then there was cannabis to help cure corns.
Hull Daily Mail, 3rd July 1888
And a recipe to make your own at home. The other main ingredient was salicylic acid, still used in corn remedies now, minus the marijuana.
Leicester Chronicle, 16th December 1911
In 1923 The Motherwell Times reported on an interesting story which had been written up in the British Medical Journal. Under the wonderful headline of GIRL GOES “SILLY”, it tells the tale of a young man who induced two teenage Shrewsbury sisters to “sniff up the dusty tobacco at the bottom of his pouch”. This was “a foolish joke” on his part.
The older sister was sick, while the younger one became “frankly intoxicated. She was taking incoherently, and giggling in a fatuous manner.” The reason for this became clearer when analysis revealed that cannabis was mixed in with the tobacco dust. Its inclusion is presented in an almost inconsequential way, however, with the doctor’s conclusion being only that tobacco must have a much stronger effect when it was snorted rather than smoked. The fatuous laughing though, well, I think maybe that wasn’t entirely the tobacco’s fault.
Motherwell Times, 28th September 1923
One thing which startles me is that the girl is reportedly oblivious to her surroundings “unless well shaken“, which makes me imagine the whole scene as basically this:
19th November 1927, Hastings and St Leonard's Observer
I’m a bit of a sucker for those items of clothing that cunningly combine two items together to look like you’re more smartly dressed than you actually are. I think it started with Graeme Garden’s one piece suit in the Goodies, where I think he pretty much invented the onesie.
Recently, I tried to buy the Top Shop top that Clara Oswald wore to Face the Raven in Doctor Who. It had sadly sold out by the time the episode went out, but I discovered that Top Shop called it a “hybrid top”, a top designed to look like a shirt under a jumper. I was pleased to see that it was actually a unmentioned costume department in-joke, seeing as the over-arching hook for the series was the puzzle over what something called the “hybrid” was actually referring to.
Clara Oswald’s hybrid top
So here’s the earliest example I’ve seen, although I’m sure the invention-crazy Victorians were all over this too. From 1927, the gaiter and shoe in one. A kind of welly designed to look like a ladies court shoe and stocking. Predictably, I want them.
19th November 1927, Hastings and St Leonard’s Observer
There is little that distinguishes the advertising of yesteryear from today so much as those products designed to fatten up the unbecomingly thin person. Enter Sargol, which claimed to overcome the “faulty food assimilation” keeping you thin, weak and unfit.
The British Medical Association’s “More Secret Remedies…” from 1912 reveals that the actual contents of Sargol pills differed widely from batch to batch, but mainly contained sugar, albumen and calcium.
Interestingly, Sargol was successfully taken to trial for fraud in the USA in 1917 on account of not doing what it claimed – although this evidently hadn’t deterred them four years later in the UK. However, the American version differed in that it mainly contained Saw Palmetto, a plant found in the south west of the US.
A thin person’s body is like a bone-dry sponge – eager and hungry for the fatty materials of which it is being robbed by the failure of the assimilative apparatus to take them from the food.
Portsmouth Evening News, 12th January, 1921
“There are thousands of men and women today distressed by excessive thinness, weak nerves and feeble stomachs, who, having tried no end of flesh-makers, foodfads, tonics, physical culture stunts, resign themselves to life-long skinniness, and imagine that nothing can ever give them flesh and strength.
Excessive thinness, often attended by nervous indigestion, is simply due to “mal-assimilation” in the vast majority of cases. Even if you feel comparatively swell, you cannot get fat if your digestive apparatus fails to “assimilate” the food you eat – food that now passes through your system as a waste, like unburned coal through an open fire-grate.
What thin folks require is a means of gently urging the assimilative functions of the stomach and intestines to extract the oils and fats from the regular daily food that is eaten, and pass them into the blood, where they can reach the starved, broken-down tissue cells and build them up.
You know that the human body is built of tissue cells and you must know that the only right way to gain flesh and strength is by replenishing the depleted tissue cells with more nourishing, fat-making elements. Is there anything better than the food Nature provides for that purpose?
A thin person’s body is like a bone-dry sponge – eager and hungry for the fatty materials of which it is being robbed by the failure of the assimilative apparatus to take them from the food.
The best way to overcome this sinful waste of flesh-building elements and to stop the leakage of fats is to use Sargol, the recently discovered regenerative force that is recommended so highly here and abroad. Take a little Sargol tablet with every meal and notice how quickly your food will make your cheeks fill out, and rolls of firm, healthy flesh are deposited over your body, covering each bony and projecting point.
All good chemists recommend and sell Sargol. Try it. It is inexpensive, easy to take, highly efficient and perfectly harmless.”
Oh, I can’t tell you the joy I felt when I saw this book, The Universal Home Doctor, on the shelves of of one of the few charity shops in town which still sells proper vintage books.
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
At first I thought it was a copy of a book I already own and love, the first old book I ever bought, The Universal Book of Hobbies and Handicrafts, as the colour, size and bindings are exactly the same. When I looked closer I saw the different title, although it’s still under the “Universal” heading which told me that these two books were part of a series, something I never suspected. I wonder if there were any more books in this set?
Neither book is dated but I have found out the the Hobbies book was published in 1935. The Home Doctor is variously dated as having the first edition published between 1932-36. Therefore I’m going to say that this also dated from 1935, as it would make sense for companion books to be published at the same, or nearly the same, time. Abe Books dates the Home Doctor as being from 1950, but this is very evidently untrue. It’s definitely pre-war, the references, pictures and hairstyles are unmistakeably from the 30s. And there were only two editions, this first one, and a second in 1967 which was a completely different book in many respects, having been updated and changed in appearance.
Here we have 1930s man in (nearly) all his glory.
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
The book consists largely of an encyclopaedia-format of medical problems and it enlightened me as to what Apoplexy actually was – it’s what we now call a Stroke. In addition to the alphabetical reference system, there’s appendices which give more in depth treatment to a number of subjects. There’s a section for new mothers on how to care for babies, and another section on the subject of Beauty.
I can’t resist a vintage beauty tip so this has been my first port of call. I was surprised, however, to see plastic surgery is not only mentioned but talked about as being rather commonly practiced. The most widespread form of this was evidently face lifting. The face lift operation was first performed in 1901, but became more popular over the course of the 1920s. “The only means of contracting a skin which has become too large is to remove parts of it by surgical operation, in which the procedure, to explain simply, is very like that of a dressmaker who “takes in” a dress that is too large for a customer.”
There are direct or indirect methods, either cutting the wrinkled skin out itself, with the skin over the area healing in more stretched manner, or by removing part of the skin at the edge of the face and pulling the skin tighter from there. Always remember to get both sides done though, they “…must always be performed on both sides, to avoid the grotesque effect of one side young and the other old.”
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
It wasn’t just face lifts – the book also mentions other “popular procedures”, including tummy tucks and breast reductions, filling collar bone hollows with fat, ears being pinned back and “little toes removed if the feet are thought too broad.” The latter was also the subject of scandalised reporting a couple of years ago, with women having so-called “stiletto surgery”, cutting off little toes for their feet to fit better in heels. It turns out it was nothing new.
I’d like to know more about the “various other “cosmetic” operations, more remarkable for ingenuity that common sense.” But you also need to be wary as legally “anyone – without any surgical training whatever – can set up as a “Beauty Specialist” and perform such operations under local anaesthesia.” This sounds like something that should definitely have been left in the past, and yet only a few weeks ago I read this, on unregulated cosmetic clinics in Australia, performing plastic surgery without any checks on their training.
Also like today, there are limitations and consequences to consider. “There are, however, two grave objections to the process of “face-lifting”. One is, that the natural expression is removed along with the superfluous skin, and the patient’s face becomes mask-like. A second, and perhaps more serious objection, is that these operations are not permanent in their effects….inevitably the time comes when the over-stretched skin takes its revenge, and the last state of the patient is worse than the first.”
I do love this line –
“It remains for the individual to choose between the necessity of “growing old gracefully” or growing old, as Mr E. F. Benson puts it, in the guise of a “grisly kitten.””
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
Wrinkles are tricky. First and foremost to help avoid their onset you need “a healthy life and contented outlook: worry and bad temper are fatal. It is noteworthy that it is not real troubles, but petty worries and all the nagging trifles of every day that are responsible for premature wrinkling!”
It’s quite right that bad eyesight can cause premature wrinkling, I’ve been slowly getting used to new gas permeable contact lenses for the past couple of months and my creased squint lines have depressingly got much worse in a short space of time as a result. For which I can thank Boots Advanced Protect and Perfect eye cream, which has incredibly restored things right back to normal (I am not being paid for this advert).
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
This is interesting, especially for someone who loathes high heels.
“Uncomfortable clothes are a cause of lines on the face, especially uncomfortable shoes. Women have wisely discarded two instruments of torture, the strangling collar and the squeezing corset, but they seem more reluctant about shoes. The discomfort of too narrow soles and too high heels still produces the frown of pain.”
Yes, this is still a thing. I bet this poor woman has the frown of pain alright.This reminds me of “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, Kimmy having developed “scream lines” from being abducted and forced to live in a bunker for 15 years.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y23dEyGaGlg
“Plucking the eyebrows seems to be losing its popularity…..brows that are no more than dark lines on the forehead seem to take away all “character” from the face.” Eyebrow fashion – whether it be plucking yourself bald like a chicken, or drawing in thick black beetling brows – remains a mystery to me still.
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
There’s a lot of information about looking after the hair. For a start, who is doing this? “The hair should be well-brushed for five minutes night and morning, preferably in front of an open window, as air is necessary for hair health.”
Hats, in 1935, were all but compulsory. “As regards hats, the best kind for the hair would be none at all except in very brilliant sunshine; but, since one must be worn, it should be light and well-ventilated. The lining should be washed once a week.”
As the owner of an oily scalp, the advice on the frequency of hair washing baffles me. “Roughly, once a week in the town and once a fortnight in the country should be enough.” And oh, the faff of having to make your own shampoo out of melted shredded soap, glycerine and eau-de-cologne. Or olive oil, egg and lemon juice.
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
Be careful about colouring your hair. An experienced hairdresser should bleach it for you as it “in unskilled hands may damage the hair seriously, as well as produce extraordinary effects.”
But hang on, X-rays are suggested as a means of removing superfluous hair. Seriously, X-rays? The book notes that its possible that the treatment may cause damage and changes to the skin, but hopes that “with further research, doctors may hit the happy mean and then this method of depilation will be by far the most satisfactory of the local treatments.” It’s true, it was noticed in the later part of the nineteenth century that X-rays resulted in hair loss and, before the terribly destructive effects of radiation were discovered, this was actually a method used by many women. Until 1946, that is. When the effects of radiation on the surviving inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it quite clear that this wasn’t something to be trifled with. Many women in the meantime had had scarring to the skin, developed cancer and even died from what was later deduced to be radiation damage from X-ray hair removal. It was even given a name – North American Hiroshima maiden syndrome. There’s a fascinating post here about it.
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
How to deal with thin necks, fat necks, thin shoulders, fat shoulders, thin arms and fat arms.
Fat necks should be “patted sharply all over with cotton wool dipped in an astringent lotion; the cleansing lotion recommended for the skin may be used, with the addition of two tablespoons of eau-de-Cologne….home massage should not be tried or the condition will probably be rendered worse.”
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
I’m not entirely sure how this would help, but now I’ve got the Happy Monday’s song “Fat Neck” in my head, and, thanks to my husband, the unfeasibly thick neck of George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher from the band Cannibal Corpse. All the astringent lotion in the world’s not shifting that. George said, “A friend of mine once said, ‘You don’t have a head, you’re a neck with lips.‘”
I’m always interested in the dietary advice from other ages. Here, carbohydrates are recommended as the basic foodstuff which should make up the majority of our diet. The fact it transforms quickly into sugar is a plus here, rather than the cause of the demonization of carbs now.
I’m pretty sure than no one apart from possibly Gwyneth Paltrow is keeping tabs on their daily phosphorus allowance these days. Still, interesting to see that the, sadly neglected, foodstuff treacle is a source of both calcium and iron. Maybe treacle will be the next trendy superfood?
The Universal Home Doctor, 1935
Edit: inspired by Tasker Dunham’s comment below about the other books in this series, I went digging. I found this advert from 1940, beautifully illustrating the series, or, at least, some of them. Daily Herald, 2nd January 1940.
After Cambridge’s Footlights, Oxford’s all-male Bullingdon Club is probably the most famous student club going. Cambridge wins the clubs, I think. Bullingdon originated in the Eighteenth Century as a sports club for the elite, focussing on cricket and horse-racing. However, it quickly became more of a dining club, and then a by-word for that kind of upper-class misbehaviour traditionally called “high spirits” – a description that would not be used for any other member of society so keen on smashing up their surroundings. Bullingdon members would traditionally pay for the damage they had done on the spot, which rather brings to mind Oscar’s Wilde’s description of “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Famously, David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson were “Buller men”. That famous photograph showing Cameron and Johnson in 1987 has been removed from general use by the copyright holder, but BBC2’s Newsnight commissioned a painting, based on the photograph, in order to get round the ban. Johnson, always a shrewd PR-player, has since dismissed the club as “a truly shameful vignette of almost superhuman undergraduate arrogance, toffishness and twittishness.” Apparently Johnson still greets his fellow club members with a cry of “Buller, Buller, Buller!” though.
David Dimbleby was also a member in his student days, although he says the loutish behaviour was not the same in his time – “We never broke any windows or got wildly drunk. It was a completely different organisation from what it became when Boris Johnson, David Cameron and George Osborne joined. We never did these disgusting, disgraceful things that Boris did.”
The Newsnight painting
Incidentally, the Bullingdon wasn’t the location of David Cameron’s notorious pig-bothering incident, that was the Piers Gaveston Society. The Bullingdon had different initiation ceremonies through the years – one of which was revealed, in 2013, to charmingly consist of burning a £50 note in front of a homeless person.
It should also be noted that The Bullingdon Club is not now an official club of Oxford University, but its existence continues independently nonetheless. The Club’s relationship with the university has been tumultuous to say the least, with particularly large scandals surrounding the behaviour of club members taking place in 1894 and 1927.
In 1894, all the members of the Bullingdon Club in Christchurch were “sent out”, or temporarily expelled. This report calls the activities “mischievous” and that the students considered it a “severe punishment“.
Edinburgh Evening News, 15th May 1894
“The severity of the punishment is much commented on.” But what did they do?
Lincolnshire Echo, 15th May 1894
Ah, it was only a practical joke. All they did was hold a anniversary Bullingdon dinner, and rounded off the evening in Christchurch College’s Peckwater Quad with a mischievous smashing of nearly 500 windows “with stones, pieces of coal and other missiles.” It doesn’t say so here, but the Buller men also smashed up most of the glass in the lights of the building, as well as damaging many doors and blinds as well.
Cambridge Independent Press, 18th May 1894
It was an “Emeute at Oxford.” Not a word I’ve come across before, but it’s a refined way of saying a riot. Even worse than that of the previous October, when the walls of Christchurch’s Tom Quad were “bedaubed with paint and the rope of the great Tom was cut.” The 468 smashed window panes gave an “appearance which might be expected to follow the explosion of a bomb.”
Cheltenham Chronicle, 19th May 1894
In addition to being sent down, the students had to pay for the damage done, “amounting to about £70″. In modern terms that’s about £8,000, which is surprisingly reasonable for the repair of 468 windows. Unless it was £70 each, but it’s not really clear. I work at a university, and if a group of students had decided to smash hundreds of windows just for a lark, I don’t think we’d consider being “sent down” an unduly harsh punishment. It’s interesting that there’s no mention of the police being involved, either.
Gloucestershire Chronicle, 19th May 1894
The Bullingdon Club continued on after that nonetheless, until Oxford’s Vice Chancellor Lewis Farnell banned them in 1923.
Western Daily Press, 4th May 1923
It wasn’t to last long. He retired that same year, after having gained the nickname “The Banning Vice-Chancellor”, on account of banning not only the Bullingdon, but also Grand Guignol plays, students from visiting a café, the charity rag regatta, and various lectures including one by Marie Stopes. “His slogan was more work and less frivolity.”
Aberdeen Journal, 10th October 1923
In 1927, a similar incident to 1894 took place, with “an after-dinner window smashing rag” at Christchurch. “The penalties have not been divulged,” but as a result, the club was banned from meeting within 15 miles of Oxford.
Western Daily Press, 23rd February 1927
Plus ca change…….Bullingdon’s usual antics resulted in the suspension of the club for two terms in 1934. This time it involved fireworks and the “ragging” of a senior member of the college.
Gloucestershire Echo, 6th January 1934
Since then, well, it’s same old same old for the Buller men. In Boris Johnson’s time in the 1980s, his biographer Andrew Gimson wrote that “I don’t think an evening would have ended without a restaurant being trashed and being paid for in full, very often in cash. A night in the cells would be regarded as being par for a Buller man and so would debagging anyone who really attracted the irritation of the Buller men.”
More recently, in 2005, members did much damage to the White Hart, a 15th Century pub in Oxfordshire, smashing 17 bottles of wine, every piece of crockery in the place and a window. Many Oxfordshire restaurants won’t take their bookings now, unsurprisingly. It’s gone a bit quieter these days because association with the club name has become pretty toxic for the would-be world-dominating undergraduate. But, going on past history, it seems likely they’ll be in the news again before too long.
One of my husband’s most often-uttered phrases is “that’s a good name for a band!” (Being a heavy metaller, though, he generally has very different ideas to me on what might make a good band name.) However, that’s the phrase which went through my mind when I saw this article from the Liverpool Daily Post in 1870 which introduced me to the sect of “The Peculiar People”.
Formed as an offshoot of the Wesleyans in the 1830s, the Peculiar People’s name came from a different translation of the biblical phrase “The Chosen People”. It was formed in Essex, spreading later to East London as well. They believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible, and, generally speaking, no use of medicine – as seen in the article below.
The tough stance on medicine was challenged during a diphtheria outbreak in 1910, with the sect dividing into “Old Peculiars” and “New Peculiars”, the New being more open to the idea of medical treatment. Interestingly, the Peculiar People still exist in Essex and East London, although they’re now called the distinctly less peculiar “Union of Evangelical Churches.”
Liverpool Daily Post, 2nd July 1870
The “Peculiar People”
An inquest was held on Thursday at Plumstead on the body of George Walker, aged forty-eight, living at 141 Sandy-hill-road, Plumstead.
Deceased’s widow said that her husband had been ailing some time, but he had only been seriously ill about a week. He was employed as a labourer by Mr Perry, contractor. Whilst ill he refused to have a medical man. They belonged to the religious denomination known as the “Peculiar People”. He used to say that God was all-sufficient to raise him up, and He would do so if it was His will. Deceased was visited by the elders, who laid hands on him and anointed him. He was suffering from a cough and died on Saturday night. The “Peculiar People” are allowed to have medical men if they liked; but they believed that the Lord was sufficient to take care of them without doctors. They used to give him wine and brandy, but no medicine.
The Coroner asked, if they gave him wine, why not give medicine? And she replied that they required to nourish the body, and gave wine and spirits for that purpose.
Abraham Andrews was called: he explained the views of the “Peculiar People” and repeated that they were bound to nourish the body with food, including wine and spirits; but that medicine was a different thing altogether, and they did not believe in doctors.
The Coroner asked him whether he would call a doctor if he broke his leg; and he said that, whilst in the fold of Christ, such a thing would not happen to him. His leg could only be broken through disobedience, and would be a sign of his being without the grace of God.
The Coroner said that the “Peculiar People” were rightly named, for they were very peculiar indeed. It was extraordinary that common sense, science and, he might say, common humanity, should not prevail. If the “Peculiar People’s” views were to be adopted, doctors might as well be dispensed with altogether.
Mr Andrews said they did not despise medical men, believing they were of great use to those who were not walking in obedience; but those who possessed Christ considered that God would be their help in every time of need.
The Coroner said that was correct, but the “Peculiar People” carried it to a ridiculous extent. Common humanity would prompt every one to see if anything could be done to prolong life, and calling in medical advice could do no harm, if it did no good. Society at large would say that they did no more for their sick than any one would do to a dog in the street.
The jury, considering a post-mortem examination necessary to ascertain whether deceased’s life could saved with proper medical advice, Dr Ryley, the police surgeon, was selected to perform it.
The inquiry was adjourned till Tuesday, on which occasion the elders who attended on deceased are to be present.
More from my Great-Grandma’s 1930s recipe book today. It’s Meat and Potato Turnovers, a pastie in other words.
Old family recipe book
Ingredients
1 lb flour
6 oz lard
1 tsp salt
A pinch cream of tartar
Filling for turnovers:
1 1/2 lb potatoes
2 oz meat minced
A little onion
Season with pepper and salt
Scatter a little flour in and boil until done.
Method
Rub lard into flour and [add] all other dry ingredients. Mix to a nice paste with cold water. Weigh 2 1/2 oz paste for each turnover. Roll out, out in the filling, fold up, egg wash, bake 25 minutes good hot oven top shelf.
Meat and Potato Turnovers, 1930s recipe
As this is a 1930s recipe, the meat saving element is very much to be seen with 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes to only 2oz of meat. I upped the meat to about 300g and reduced the potatoes to about 500g, browned with a fried onion, flour stirred in, just enough water to cover everything, and cooked until the potatoes were tender. There was too much filling for the amount of pastry I ended up with, but that’s fine – meat and potato leftovers are easy enough to use in other dishes, or just to eat by themselves, Nigella-style in front of the fridge.
I wasn’t sure what shape there were supposed to be, so made them in traditional half-moon pastie-style, and cooked them at 200 degrees for 25 minutes. As my daughter has an egg allergy, I brushed them with milk instead of egg.
As you’d expect they tasted comforting and old-fashioned, the lardy pastry feeling very traditional. Best eaten warm, and on an old plate – I got out my 1950s Ridgway Homemakers Woolworths plate for the occasion.
Before Irn Bru was Irn Bru, it was Iron Brew. Up until 1946 when a new law declared that drinks couldn’t be described as a “brew” if they weren’t actually brewed, and so the spelling, if not the pronunciation, was changed to keep within the letter of the law.
The basic Scottish hardness of Iron Brew’s advertising strategy is already in place in 1906, with the drink being endorsed here by champion wrestler and cable tosser Alex Munro, and all-round champion athlete of the world Donald Dinnie.
Falkirk Herald, 27th January 1906
Here’s an illustrated advert to show what they actually looked like.
Motherwell Times, 6th October 1905
Oh, for the days when you could be the all-round champion of the world and look like Donald Dinnie. He was a big celebrity of the day and well hard to boot. He’s been called “The Nineteenth Century’s Greatest Athlete”, and had the honour of heavy artillery shells used in the First World War being called “Donald Dinnie’s” in recognition of just how rock he was. To be fair, he was 69 in 1906, if this is when this illustration of him was made.
Motherwell Times, 6th October 1905
Here’s Alex Munro, who excellently won bronze at the 1908 Olympics and silver at the 1912 Olympics in the Tug of War event. Oh, how I wish they still had Tug of War, but sadly that ended as an event in 1920. It reminds me of all those strong man programmes you used to get on TV in the 80s, around the time World of Sport was on.
Motherwell Times, 6th October 1905
Here Iron Brew was apparently an essential part of the recuperation of “The Fasting Man” Mons. Beaute, who held the world record for fasting at the time. 40 days with only Barr’s Soda Water as sustenance, and recovering afterwards with a heady mix of Iron Brew and Bovril.
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.
Manchester Evening News, 25th October, 1939
“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.”
I’ve got a list of childhood books that I feel the need to write about, all of a sudden, in tribute to Ronnie Corbett, Paul Daniels and Victoria Wood, who have all died in such heartbreakingly quick succession.
The three books – The Two Ronnies Annual (1979), The Paul Daniels Magic Annual (1982) and Victoria Wood’s sketch book Barmy (1987) were those kind of formative books that I read and re-read until I knew every word like I know the lyrics of a favourite song. The kind of books that, like a song, you can have no contact with for years, but on finding them again you can still join in, word-perfect, remembering where you were and how you felt, overwhelmed with nostalgia.
The Two Ronnies was from 1979, but I got it a few years after that, from a charity shop, as so many of my annuals were. I barely knew the pleasure of seeing a blank crossword, pre-filled in as they always were from a previous owner. And when I bought this replacement some years ago for my long-lost original copy, so this crossword (written by Gyles Brandreth) was also completed, quite comfortingly.
I always loved the Two Ronnies with a kind of pure love, unsullied by any other, more alternative comedy I was also developing a passion for. On the surface, they were one of those old fashioned double acts which abounded in the 70s and early 80s – except they were just so much better. The absolutely flawless sketch acting was a delight, Ronnie B’s wordplay a joy for a kid like me who collected words I liked in a little book, and the serial sketches like Village of the Smiths really quite gripping and even influential, looking back.
As well as their own performing talents, they had some of the best writers around, of course. It wasn’t everyone who had the Pythons on their writing team, and I would dearly have loved to have seen Ronnie C’s face when Ronnie B revealed that he was actually the Phantom Sketch Writer of old London Town, Gerald Wylie. But my absolute favourite bit was Ronnie C’s monologue – such a hard piece to deliver as naturally as he did, like a mini Tristram Shandy story every week, “But I am getting ahead of myself…”
Ronnie C was really my favourite, much as I loved Ronnie B too, not only because of the monologues but I was also a devotee of Sorry! with its strangely exciting opening credits. He was one of the few authors that I’ve ever felt he need to immediately write to after reading their book – “And it’s goodnight from him“, Ronnie C’s 2007 autobiography of the Two Ronnies is just so bloody lovely. He’s interesting, insightful, generous to everyone he knows and, importantly, to all the crew they worked with. I wanted to write to him and tell him just how happy that book made me, but I never did. I wish I had.
Anyway. The Annual. It’s a combination of sketches reproduced in rather exciting, dynamic comic form, games, jokes and factual depictions of what it’s like to work in telly. Like the page below. Brilliantly, these are the bits with no jokes, but they’ve become retrospectively funny because Viz magazine has taken this exact format and is still running “Behind the Scenes”-style comics strips now.
Not Viz
Here’s a board game on making it in the world of 70s showbiz, and which I seem to remember I utterly failed to get anyone to play with me. Moving over the “Jim’ll Fix It” reference swiftly….
Jim’ll Fix It has ruined everything
Calculator games! Remember when that was the absolutely most up to the minute thing you could be doing at school? They’ve glossed over “boob” and the advanced “boobless” here though. That guess your age trick – I remember trying to get my mum to play this and she wouldn’t, for reasons that I couldn’t fathom. They were possibly connected to the fact that she told me she was 21, which I once related solemnly to a teacher, who looked slightly startled as I was 8 at the time. It was one of those times when adults are obviously (to them) amusing themselves, but kids just take that stuff as gospel.
No 8008
Euro Christmas- this was my favourite bit of the book, and is strangely topical now, although it’s about the EEC as things were at the time. It’s a strangely frighteningly drawn cartoon, and one which I was very impressed to discover was written by Eric Idle and David Nobbs. High pedigree indeed.
By Eric Idle and David NobbsBy Eric Idle and David Nobbs
This was another favourite – A consumers corner endlessly recommending the disastrous Boffo products. Now reminding me a bit of “Reeves and Mortimer products”, too.
BoffoBoffo
But now, here’s the late news…
A survey on the decline of morals in Britain reveals that in Liverpool alone on each day last week an average of 267 women made love to an unmarried man. The man is now recovering in hospital.
Next week we’ll have hints on coarse fishing…..followed by lewd hockey, suggestive cricket and obscene golf.
