Here are a handful of commemorative souvenirs that – at the time – I was too young to appreciate, but which, six decades on, give me considerable delight for being so thoroughly British!
The Official Programme (Price 2/6) with black-and-white interior art by, I suspect, Eric Fraser...
...the front cover of the BBC's official publication,The Radio Times, unquestionably by Fraser...
...the cover and some pages from a booklet celebrating England's Queens, entitled Came the Fair Young Queen, published to mark the Coronation by the gentleman's clothiers, Moss Bros, with text by noted theatre critic, Eric Keown, and amazing illustrations by the wonderful (but now largely forgotten) illustrator, Anthony Groves-Raines...
And, finally, a poster by Guinness featuring the brewery's advertising animal menagerie that were so famous there was no need to display the name of the advertiser (beyond the ostrich-guzzled beer glass)...
Two-and-six for the souvenir programme. Twelve-and-a-half of the new-fangled pence. Sounds like bargain.
ReplyDeleteAny idea what it is worth today?
I find the Guinness poster quite creepy. I should imagine all these must be worth a great deal of money now.
ReplyDeleteI was just a bump in my mother's tummy at the time, so my recollections are somewhat hazy.
Phil - e-bay prices range from £0.99 to £27.99!
ReplyDeleteSharon – Creepy?? The Guinness zoo animals had featured on posters for 20 years and were beloved by the nation. They were always shown purloining the Keeper's bottle or glass of stout and carried the caption: "My goodness, my Guinness!" which played on the very first Guinness campaign slogan: "Guinness is Good for You!"
Another famous campaign was "Guinness for Strength" in which workers were shown doing incredible feats (such as carrying a girder on their head) because of the strength-giving virtues of the beer. In this poster the Keeper demonstrates his Guinness-acquired strength by lifting a bench with all those birds and animals.
As I said in the post, such was the fame of the Guinness posterts that it was unnecessary to name the product.