Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Balance of Payments Crisis

Political cartoons did not often appear in Punch but when they did they usually had an authoritative feel about them. During the war enormous sums of money had been spent in order to ensure eventual victory. The time of reckoning had arrived and in this cartoon John Bull, speaking for the nation, recognises that some part of the current standard of living needs to be jettisoned in order to avoid complete disaster.

I can’t imagine a similar sentiment being expressed in such uncontroversial terms today.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Retelling Old Tales

The cartoonist is here deliberately trying to give an old story a more modern twist. In the Middle Ages it was up to the parents to choose a husband for their daughter. In modern times it is up to the girl herself. The artist decided to mix up the time frames. That was the joke.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Inter Generational Disagreement About Popular Music

There is not much evidence of consumerism in the 1949 Punch cartoons but this is an exception. A massive state of the art electric record player (not a wind-up gramophone) is being bought. The daughter is enthusiastic about the purchase and the mother appears to be mildly pleased. The father is clearly a reluctant buyer and wants to be protected from hearing the records that his daughter is going to play.

Unfortunately for him there is going to be a very long wait for personal stereos with excellent earphones that block out the sound to anyone but the listener.

I wonder whose music is being played in the listening booths. Could it be Frank Sinatra? Perhaps it was Dinah Shore. Tommy Handley once defined an intellectual as someone who prefers old Bernard Shaw to young Dinah Shore.

Re: The Pages of Punch

Many a Saturday morning spent in the record shop listening to records in one of those booths.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Looking After Baby

The young mother is more or less technically correct in saying that her baby doesn’t take up ‘a scrap of room’. She hasn’t mentioned all the other baby related objects which have taken up the whole of what was once a rather grand room.

We can see three different guidebooks to advise the mother on looking after her baby. Clearly she is trying very hard to do all the right things.

She can’t get any advice from her own mother since one generation previously her mother would have had child care performed for her – by experts. When she was a child herself this new mother would have only seen her own mother from 5.00 to 6.00 in the evening.

On the other hand she must be doing something right because the baby is thriving and looking blissfully contented.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Remembering the War

David Langdon was a very prolific artist during and after World War Two. He was responsible for the famous Billy Brown of London Town public information cartoons.

The joke here is that holidaymakers at the seaside are treated like soldiers being instructed – in this case – on the correct way to open up a deckchair. This memory of the war is still warm and all but one of the holiday makers are standing to attention while the bossy instructor is doing his stuff. The ‘civilians’ looking on seem relaxed enough.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Thinly Disguised Truth

Cinemas were big business during the post war time of austerity. More often that not one had to queue to get in. The manager looks positively tycoon like while the commissionaire looks like the sergeant major summoned by the commanding officer.

The signwriter has underestimated the intelligence of his boss and he will soon be looking for a new situation. That should not be a problem since this was a time of full employment.

Other people have used the same trick in order to smuggle a real message into a bland statement. I remember the occasion when Robert Maxwell, very soon before his death, was talking up the share price of his Daily Mirror flotation. Knowing that Maxwell was very quick to resort to litigation, a financial journalist headed his piece with the following:

Cannot
Recommend
A
Purchase.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Underworld Dilemma

Although his money is bogus he wants her love to be for him to be genuine and not for the results of his forgery. This is not likely.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: A Really Silly Question

PC Plod reveals his ignorance.

We notice that this is a time when orchestra members often were all white men.

Re: The Pages of Punch

Now that I find funny.