Showing posts with label Mummers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mummers. Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Rubber Souls


It's November 1947, and Henry Seabright sees his addition to a series called Old English Customs appear in the latest Sphere magazine. But this is no editorial; a tiny line of type under a description of Mumming Plays says 'One of a series of pictures specially painted for the Dunlop Rubber Company', next to an emblem of the Union Flag and a rubber tyre scrolled with 'As British As The Flag'. And that's it, most of the type area is this scrumptious picture of St.George challenging Slasher, whilst village folk look on outside (and inside) the pub where a recent thaw sees snow sliding from the roof. There's just so much going on here, prompting so many questions. Why is that bloke that looks like Rudyard Kipling in a black bowler hat doing running away by that green car in the background?. Well done Dunlop, whose name I've only just seen on the spare tyre of that gorgeous touring car in the foreground, and well done Henry Seabright for choosing this difficult bird's eye viewpoint.