Welcome to Bournemouth

These two illustrations provided the frontispiece to official guides to Bournemouth published in 1935 and 1965. The top view was entitled Bathing from the Pier, and appears to be a of a smaller area especially built lower down for that activity. One-piece swimsuits are certainly the fashion!

The lower view is, well, self explanatory. I'm not sure whether as a nine year-old, I would have been interested in the girls on the beach, although I certainly appreciated singer Susan Maughan when she appeared with Morcambe & Wise at the Winter Gardens Theatre the following summer! My 1965 holiday would have included riding on the yellow Corporation trolleybuses and serious train-watching, as most services through Bournemouth then were still steam-hauled. An evening treat would be a drive through the town's illuminations in Uncle Billy's Ford Consul. Now, where's my time machine.........

The sobering thought is that the carefree group from 1935 have probably all died and that the game gals from 1965 are all now pensioners!

Senior Service Satisfy

As a non-smoker, I can't say whether it does satisfy or not, but it was a very popular brand of cigarette. My mother smoked Guards until she gave up, whilst my father's tobacco of choice was Old Holborn. I was regularly sent to the local shop, three doors down, for "Half an ounce of Old Holborn and a packet of green", the green being Rizla cigarette papers. Rolling your own appeared to be very economical smoke, with very little wastage, There would always be 'dog ends' lying around our house, waiting for their last puffs. A girl I knew back in the 1970s rolled her own too, as did her mother, I recall. Heaven forbid that I should condone smoking, but I did raise a smile when I saw a girl student on a bus recently, painstakingly constructing a cigarette from the contents of a battered old pouch so as to be ready on the completion of her journey.

Many adverts for Senior Service had a nautical theme, understandable as that was also the nickname for the Royal Navy.

The two colourful adverts depicting naval scenes heading this post were painted by Harold Wylie and appeared in Punch magazines in1960/61, and that with the red background from a 1960s theatre programme. The three black & white illustrations were found in various editions of Picture Post of the early 1950s. Lastly, the photograph above was taken in 2010 of an old shop front in Margate, now a cafe, but retaining the old sign-age above the lovely curved windows. The owner did give me a funny look though! The brand was first manufactured in 1925 and is still sold today.

Rome 1960

Another cover from Punch magazine, that for 24 August 1960. Rome are hosting the Olympic Games and George Worsley Adamson (1913-2005) provided the illustration. The USSR headed the medal table with 43 golds; the GB tally was 2, leaving us at 12th in the ranking. I hear that we did a bit better this year.

Driving Lesson

Little Barford at Acton Lane Power station; the driver steadies his nerves and rolls himself a cigarette after letting me drive his engine..................

I have just finished watching a couple of programmes on BBC2 about railways in Wales, pre-Beeching. There were lots of 1950s/60s film footage taken during the last days of steam, together with the reminiscences of retired railwaymen. One story was of a young lad, befriended a driver at Mold, who was allowed a spot of driving, once away of the eagle-eye of the station master. These programmes were of a world so much in the past and it reminded me of the opportunities for footplate rides during the 1970s/80s on industrial  locomotives, one I recall hearing being at a colliery in South Wales where visiting enthusiasts could 'play with the engine', whilst the crew were at lunch!

I did a fair amount of footplate travel myself during this period; the rough-riding old electrics at Harton Colliery, cadging a lift on the last train of the day out of Pennyvenie Colliery on a warm January afternoon in 1978 and riding on the outside of Simplex locomotives around the Leighton Buzzard sand pits (there was only room for one in the cab).

One of my earlier experiences was at Acton Lane Power station in November 1974. Visits to see the steam locomotives were granted on Saturday mornings and at the end of my visit, the old welsh driver suggested that I might like a turn at the regulator up and down the sidings. Whether management knew about this activity was unclear!

Health and safety considerations has stopped all this, not that there are many industrial locomotives around today, anyway. Even at preserved railways, locomotive sheds are now generally out of bounds to the casual visitor, unless with a guide of some sort. At least some railways now offer locomotive driving courses, which is one way to get onto the footplate. That said, my wife recently used her feminine charms on the fireman at Bridgnorth station, to get some pictures inside the cab of 42968...........

The 1970s office

Two adverts from Punch magazine, 9 July 1975.

All we need now is a secretary in a short skirt..................thanks Benny.

Motoring in the 1930s

With a sharp increase in both car ownership and traffic accidents during the 1920s, it became apparent that further regulation of road users was required. The 1930 Road Traffic act paved the way for many changes, including standardisation of road sign-age.

The illustration below comes from the pages of a 1930s road atlas supplied by the Co-operation Wholesale Society, showing some of the new signs. Included is the Belisha Beacon, introduced by Leslie Hore-Belisha, who became Minister for Transport in 1934. A further review of road signs took place in the 1960s, chaired by Sir Walter Worboys, resulting in a new generation of signs suitable for the motorway age. Although the old ones have been largely swept away, some still survive, particularly those giving local directions. These seem to be generally known as 'pre-Worboys'. The lower picture is of an old ring-top directional sign in the Lincolnshire village of Syston, taken in March 1991.

Ronald Searle at Punch

Ronald Searle produced a lot of illustrations for Punch magazine during the 1950s/60s; here are a trio of covers from 1962 & 1963.