Now. I don't remember my parents reading The Sphere magazine (or indeed similar) in the 50s, but these full page advertisements for Brooke Bond Tea somehow ring bells. They're from a series in 1955 called "Round and about with the 'little Red Vans'", and probably took their cue from contemporary Post Office posters that positioned Royal Mail vans in market squares and village streets countrywide. Mind you 'little Red Vans' is slightly coy, considering these vans are the quite beefy and utterly unique Trojans. But I'm fascinated by the illustrations, not just because they are so redolent of my childhood, but because advertisers and their agencies produced such stunning work at this time, Think Shell, Whitbread, Johnnie Walker. True commercial art, the Suffolk scene at the top is by Rowland Hilder, the Broad Quay in Bristol by Morden. Time for a cuppa.
Nice. Whatever did we do before nostalgia?
ReplyDeleteWell, I suppose we've always had it Mike. Peasants huddled around a smoky fire on the Sussex Downs wishing the Romans would come back.
ReplyDeleteNeuralgia
ReplyDeleteFantastic. More vintage commercial art, please!
ReplyDeleteOh there will be Phil, there will be. Getting the taste.
ReplyDeleteProblem is, they aren't globally relevant ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd most of the brands that did this sort of work have fallen by the wayside or have been snapped up and neutralised by some "global player".
Too true Sue.
ReplyDeleteJust an idle thought, what brand of tea is the choice of 'Unmitigated England'?
ReplyDeleteGood question Stephen. Brooke Bond delivered by a red Trojan would obviously be high on the shopping list, but in the Unmitigated Cabinet of Curiosities is a 1950s Typhoo packet, the fabulous swirly grey and red one. (Typhoo is Chinese for 'doctor' apparently.) My bog standard Earl Grey should be decanted into it.
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