06-05-2018, 09:29 AM
1507
Re: The Pages of Punch
1948: AusterityAusterity was then the official government policy. The credit crunch that time round was caused by the massive loans taken out to pay for the war effort. We needed to match our imports by an equivalent amount of exports. We were literally told that we needed to tighten our belts.
The air stewardess is referring to two sorts of belt tightening. These passengers enjoy much more space than their modern equivalents. However, air travel was vastly more expensive at the time. Package holidays and airline competition were still in the future.
07-05-2018, 11:52 AM
1509
Re: The Pages of Punch
1947: Class envyI see that Anton has been affected by a widespread upper middle class reaction to improved working class life styles. No chairman of the board would ever really be tempted by shop floor overtime rates. There really were people who felt personally offended when manual labourers were able to buy motor cars.
08-05-2018, 09:31 AM
1510
Re: The Pages of Punch
1946: Army surplusThis cartoon was produced by the artist who placed modern circumstances into events set in history or mythology. The letter SPQR was the trigger for the point of the joke. In the immediate post war period various army surplus products became available to the general public. The initials SPQR was the way in which the Roman state described itself. It stood for Senatus PupulusQue Romanus meaning the senate and people of Rome. In the UK the letters WD (War Department) identified ex-army equipment.
The artist has not accurately described the use of elephants in the ancient world. It was the Carthaginians under their general Hannibal who used elephants in his wars against Rome.
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