When Everything Old is New Again

This is for all you old car lovers out there. It was parked in the street this week
[By the way, Morris Minor fans I have just found the photo from Ariah Park which made me think of you. It's on that blog  page now].

I am looking at my ‘new’ calendar which features old travel advertising. I must say I do rather like old advertising. I don’t know why. It’s not as if it was particularly great in artistic terms or reflected particularly good times either in society or my life. It’s probably a sign of getting older to find things from one’s childhood – retro clothing, old cars, toys and advertising quaint and fascinating. I used to collect glossy posters of bright shiny cars with fins. There was very little colour around at the time. No digital photography, nor colour photography, few photos in the paper and the printer’s palette was very limited.

Just when I was getting a little nostalgic my son –in –law sent me these, just to remind me how times have changed and not to get too sentimental about those good old days.

Thank goodness for the women's movement!

There were worse things than the Marlborough Man. Here's Marlborough Mum.

It's a real shock seeing cigarette advertising now

So are ads like these!

If there is any nostalgia it was for a time of security and optimism and when we could still believe in advertisers' claims. While wages were low and many things were wrong, you could also believe that neither you nor the objects of desire would be redundant in half a year’s time.

Those images were also bleeding edge  (this means even sharper than cutting edge) at the time. It made me wonder how today's red hot copy will look tomorrow. Will people want to collect those images too – or only for their absurdity?

We musn’t knock the ladies in the Temperance Poster [Ariah Park Post] either. Were it not for them leading the charge for women’s rights half the population would probably still not be allowed to vote, sign cheques, own property or hold jobs.