Tag: Adverts

More Owbridge’s Lung Tonic

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 20, 2015
12 Comments on More Owbridge’s Lung Tonic

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this blog (well, there’s a ton of things I’ve learned, in fact, everyday is a school day here) it’s that there’s an awful lot of people still interested in Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. My last post on the subject here is one of my most popular pages. It’s really a rare day that there’s no hits on that post, which I wasn’t anticipating at all. As far as I was concerned, it was one of those pharmaceuticals lodged firmly in the past, like the mercury-containing Blue Pills of another post.

But Owbridge’s was a medicine that people obviously remember taking and are googling nostalgically for. And so I checked when it last was available, and I was surprised that production only ended in 1971 – no wonder so many people know of it still.

One thing I have to say – the British Medical Association’s “Secret Remedies” book of 1909 that I linked to in my previous post states that an analysis of Owbridge’s shows the medicine to contain ipecacuanha wine, honey and, alarmingly, a quantity of chloroform. But the formula did change again over the years and so the version that people had in the 1960s was (presumably) not the same as that analysed in 1909. Having said that, I haven’t found anything to state what exactly the last incarnation consisted of.

Still, for those Owbridge’s fans still out there (although it is apparently a love-hate kind of memory, I gather), here’s some more vintage adverts I’ve found.

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. Owbridge’s Lung Tonic.

It sounds like there was some dispute going on here between The Pharmaceutical Society and patent medicines. “No one has the right to attach poison labels” to Owbridge’s, it says. That wouldn’t have helped business.

A double page advert celebrating the “thirty-third season” of Owbridge’s.

“Please remember we can produce originals of all these letters”:

This 1914 typeface reminds me of the opening credits of a black and white “Carry On” film.

Emphasizing the honey in this advert (rather than the chloroform):

Yorkshire Evening Post, 19th January 1926

Finally, a celebration of the 80th anniversary in 1954. It was around for nearly 100 years, just missing the centenary in 1974.

Tags Adverts, Owbridge's lung tonic, pharmaceuticals, The British Newspaper Archive

1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink War

Kellogg’s Problem, 1941

Post author By Estelle
Post date April 11, 2015

A 1941 advert from Kellogg’s Cornflakes today – literally demonstrating their blitz spirit.

It’s apologising for the shortage of Cornflakes in the shops, while giving themselves a hell of a (deserved) pat on the back for keeping the armed forces and blitzed areas supplied with breakfast.

Tags 1941, advert, advertising, Adverts, food, Kellogg's Cornflakes, The British Newspaper Archive

1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

Mel-O-Ade Cubed Drink, 1932

Post author By Estelle
Post date November 22, 2014

Here’s a 1932 book produced by the Liverpool Daily Post, “Motor runs from Merseyside”. It’s in a fairly delicate condition and so I couldnt quite scan everything flat. I’ll post up some more of this book later. For now, here’s some of the adverts it contains.

My favourite bit is this advert for Mel-O-Ade, a “Summer health drink”, “in convenient cubes for motorists”. Mel-O-Ade was a locally produced drink, made in Dale Street, Liverpool.

Buy a book now and then, and refresh your mind! A great phrase from an advert from the stationer and bookseller Philip Son and Nephew, Ltd on Church Street.

Adverts for where to buy cars in Liverpool. I just love that 1930s Art Deco aesthetic.

Motor Runs from Merseyside, Liverpool Daily Post, 1932

Tags 1930s, 1932, Adverts, Liverpool, Liverpool Daily Post, Motor Runs from Merseyside

1950-1999 Adverts Ephemera

Hidden Treasures – Liverpool Echo, 1951

Post author By Estelle
Post date October 27, 2014
3 Comments on Hidden Treasures – Liverpool Echo, 1951

I’m happy to hold, read and buy any old Victorian book, really. I’m quite a visual, tangible person in general – I can’t concentrate very well on audio books and need to see the words on the page to really get into a story. I never much liked Jackanory as a child because of that (apart from Rik Mayall’s one obviously). And I’m the same with history. I’ve read so many history books (well, I do have a history degree) but seeing an old building, reading an old book, holding a piece of ephemera that has survived against the odds – they’re what brings the past to life to me.

So, when I found this 1889 book, Charles Stuart Calverley’s Fly Leaves, in a charity shop, I was interested at first purely because of its age. But I bought it mainly because, flicking through, I found that a torn page of a Liverpool Echo from 1951 had been used as a bookmark. And I really wanted to read that page. Any newspaper given time is fascinating. The most commonplace of things, the events, the layout, the adverts (especially the adverts) suddenly represents a time in a way you don’t realise while it’s your present.

Fly Leaves itself wasn’t especially interesting to me. Or at least it wasn’t until years later, when I found an appendix at the end with a spoof Charles Dickens exam on The Pickwick Papers which really made me laugh. With questions such as naming all the component parts of a dog’s nose and deducing Mr Pickwick’s maximum speed:

But the Echo was fascinating. It’s the front page, folded up for 60 years.

Along with a strangely high number of adverts for Private Detective agencies, here are some highlights from the so-very-closely printed page.

“What colour did you say you wanted your crease-resisting chiffon velvet gown, Mrs Clarkson?”

An advert to remove hair, moles and veins by Myra Howell’s diathermy techniques. She was a long standing presence in Bold Street – I’ve also seen adverts of hers from 1919. (An interesting side note – medical diathermy machines were used in the UK in the Second World War to jam German radio beams used for nighttime bombing raids in what was called “The Battle of the Beams”)

An advert for E Rex Makin’s Solicitors, that must surely have been newly set up in 1951, seeing as he’s still going, and I saw him in town not too long ago. A slightly legendary figure in Liverpool life, he is. Not only has his firm been going a very long time, but he was Brian Epstein’s solicitor and involved in setting up the Beatles contract with him. Plus, he’s supposed to have invented the word “Beatlemania”.

“Wednesday night is Landing Craft Night”

I love this advert – a wallpaper company gegging in on an upcoming General Election.

Tags 1889, 1951, Adverts, E Rex Makin, ephemera, Fly Leaves, Liverpool, newspaper, the Beatles, The Liverpool Echo