Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: The View from the Ivory Tower

The two academics have never heard of the Hollywood mogul and can therefore see no meaning to the word star other than that recognised by astronomy.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: Finding the Right Words

The little girl knows what she is holding but she doesn’t know the correct word for it. I remember an occasion when my son, at a very young age, noticed an unpleasant smell. What he said was ‘I don’t like my nose’. Quite reasonable under the circumstances and he was instantly understood.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: Tall, Dark but not a Stranger (Alas)

Although interest in occult revelations is still present today in forms such as Mystic Meg it is not nearly as widespread as it was pre-1939. As this cartoon attests this activity could be up market as well as down market. The elaborate atmosphere depicted here suggests a particularly well-heeled clientele.

This punter is not pleased at being offered a meeting with her husband. She would not be here if the thought of meeting him was attractive to her.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: Consulting a More Modern Kind of Guru

Another form of getting exotic guidance was the growing interest in psychiatry though this was necessarily an activity confined to those with substantial incomes. The cartoon suggests some sort of dominance of the practitioner over the client and that the client likes this although she is complaining.

An anorak reaction to the wording here is to identify Mr Prober as a Jungian analyst since the Freudians talked about the unconscious and the Jungians always used the term subconscious. I am not at all sure that the anorak is justified in detecting this degree of precision. The cartoonist is probably rather vague about such things. After all, Mr Prober’s brass plate proclaims that he is a psychologist – not the same thing at all. (His ‘qualification’ contains a little joke.)

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: A Non-Burglar Achieves his Objective

It doesn’t matter what year we are looking at in Punch there always seems to be at least one burglary joke. This one is fairly sophisticated. The enterprising salesman has broken into the man’s house and hidden under the bed in order to show how easy it is to do this. It looks as though his sale is in the bag.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: Cinema as a Metaphor for Life

The comparison is no longer with, say, Madame Bovary. Now Greta Garbo had become a touchstone for human emotions.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: A Picture of Contemporary Life

This drawing is one of a series which simply comment on life at the time. There is no question of praise or blame here. It is just presented as a record of a current pre-occupation.

We note that every participant at this séance is female. Presumably this is also a piece of accurate reporting.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: ‘What I like is What Everyone Likes’

The ‘joke’ here is that the host assumes that his tastes are shared by everyone else. I think that we can take it that the colonel would not be thrilled by either of the books on offer.

It clearly is an old-fashioned household. The guest is taking a candle to light his way to his bedroom.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: Farmers Visiting Town

There would have been many contrasts between life on the farm and life in the city. The most striking instance would surely have been the complete absence of any need to respond to the rhythms of nature.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1938: The Importance of Regular Exercise

Isobel understands the principle of regular exercise but is rather hazy about its practical implications.