Re: The Pages of Punch

1941: Not easy to find a joke

Civilians coping with heavy air raids are an unlikely source of humour. The cartoonist here is trying too hard and hasn’t succeeded.

Re: The Pages of Punch

Hope all is well with you Mr. M? I've missed my daily fix of your cartoons.

Re: The Pages of Punch

Me too.

Re: The Pages of Punch

Blinking heck fellas he only missed a day...it's allowed

Re: The Pages of Punch

Perhaps what we're saying is, "We hope he's OK."

Re: The Pages of Punch

I'm OK. I just forgot to post. At my age it's allowed.

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1943: Getting round the restriction

I can well remember the official exhortation that we should run the bath on only five inches of water in order to conserve fuel. A further nugget from that time is that we were told that the king also only had five inches in his bath. The portly gentleman in this cartoon has tilted his bath so that what was five inches has become a lot more. This is not plausible but it works quite well as a joke.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1945: Ground crew in the RAF

The RAF ground crews had to maintain the planes to make them completely airworthy. Once in the air there was no chance for running repairs. Here David Langdon makes the humorous suggestion that bicycle repair is on a par with aircraft maintenance.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1945: The warrior’s return

The corporal has come home after the war. He expects that his family will listen to his story with rapt attention. He has come armed with visual aids consisting of German soldiers’ equipment. He has not expected any competition from his family each of whom also wants to tell their wartime experiences.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1942: Yankee boasting

This cartoon is a not so subtle dig at the American tendency to boast about everything that comes from their side of the Atlantic. This conversation would not really have taken place but the cartoonist uses this fiction to address the real resentment of US boasting that would manifest itself from time to time.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1944: Anticipating D Day

Many allied soldiers were based in the UK prior to D Day. It was normal for them to wear their nationality on the shoulder. A Polish and a French officer a looking at identical books called ‘Polish up Your French’. The Polish officer is clearly seeking to improve his school learned French. But what is the Frenchman doing? He surely seeks to ‘polish’ (rhyming with whole-ish) up his French. He would probably want to do this in order to communicate with his Polish comrades. It’s a subtle point but presumably it was appreciated at the time.