Yes, as you well know. I was merely drawing attention to the fact that I had never before witnessed the liquid version being consumed. I had led a rather blinkered life before I wore the Queen’s uniform.
Well said and far better than what the cookhouse often had to offer 
1935: Achieving the Average
As far as I can tell this looks like an authentic scene in the Deep South of the USA at that time. The visitor looks very British and everyone else looks very Deep South.
1935: Re-enforcing Scottish Stereotypes
We are light heartedly meant to assume that Sandy took the ‘saxpence’ to be for the purchase of the cruet rather than for its use. He may well have a bit of a point. Sixpence for the use of the cruet is surely excessive. But then we must bear in mind that the boarding house is also Scottish!
1935: On the Never Never
Hire purchase was well established by the 1930s. The young couple are making a token payment to whichever HP agreement they currently feel more committed.
I remember my father getting a set of encyclopedia on HP…Arthur Mee… a set of ten… I read and read through them…
I saw a set recently in a local charity shop and would have bought them for old times sake but they were priced at £50!
Thank you Mr. Magoo, a treasure to read as always…
1935: The World Has Gone Topsy Turvy
Madam’s problem is clear. Used as she is to employing uneducated domestic staff she now finds herself dealing with someone who is better educated than she is. I would have thought that such a scenario would have been rather rare in 1935 but the cartoon illustrates some of the accepted norms of the time. The readers of Punch would have sympathised with her difficulty.
I recall that during my National Service days barrack room lawyers were unpopular with the officers precisely because these men were better versed in army law than their military superiors.
1935: Another Self-Made Man
A common theme in Punch over the years has been to laugh at self-made men whose money supplied them with the trappings of upper middle class life but denied them the self-assurance of those who were born to that status.
I have wondered about the relevance of commercial French. I can only think that the parvenu wanted his daughter to exchange business letters with his French suppliers or customers. She, it seems, was taking to her new status in a manner more congenial to the readers of Punch.
It is hard today to imagine anyone today bothered by the use of the word ‘menu’.
1935: The Great Unwashed
The joke here is that the miscreant is very far from being clean unlike the forces of law and order.
An alternative view sees that he is not only dirty but badly dressed and noticeably shorter in stature and less well fed than the other three. Not many people in 1935 would have called him a victim of his circumstances.
1935: Going Beyond the Conventional
The shop assistant realises that this is a difficult request to satisfy. How about a pinstripe suit with a bowler hat? A green bowler hat, obviously.
1935: Millinery For The Criminal Classes
Whoever designed this hat had not considered the wider implications of its shape.
1935: You Can Never Satisfy Some People
They are both wearing heavy outdoor clothing whereas the nurse isn’t. Would they be TB sufferers? There was a lot of it about in the 1930s. Fresh air was seen as the principal cure.
1935: Not Knowing What to Do at the Seaside
This is just my opinion but I suggest that this cartoon is about people who don’t know how to enjoy a trip to the seaside. This would be in contrast to the readers of Punch who are well versed on this subject. The boy’s father has no better idea about benefiting from the visit. (To be fair to the lad a miniature bucket and spade are of no use on a shingle beach.)
1935: The Extremely Well Rewarded Poet
I instantly recognised this as a tongue in cheek suggestion that some poets become very rich from their poems. I then felt encouraged in this interpretation when I spoke out loud the name of this mythical Asiatic country.
1935: Give Peace a Chance
This drawing is of some historical significance. Occasionally Punch showed a serious cartoon which was intended to reflect the mood of a large proportion of the population. This certainly belongs to that category.
Hitler had already been in power for more than two years. As yet he had not threatened any of Germany’s neighbours but his bellicose speeches and rapid rearmament caused people to realise that another war had become a real possibility. With bitter memories of the previous conflict many people in Britain clung to the hope that it would be possible to avert such a catastrophe.
This cartoon accurately reflects how most people felt at the time. A meeting of former enemies was seen as an excellent way of emphasising the unwillingness of both populations to renew the slaughter.
Only a few years later such sentiments were dismissed as appeasement. For the most part this was not the case. It was simply a deep reluctance to undergo again the well-remembered horrors.
The cartoonist stressed how similar both lots of veterans by omitting uniforms and flags. This was not the case when the British old soldiers actually arrived in Berlin. Goebbels saw to it that that the swastika was extremely well in evidence and he tried to demonstrate this as a British endorsement of the Nazi regime.
Eventually even Chamberlain had to admit that war was unavoidable and no doubt regretted that Britain’s reluctance to rearm had put the country in an extremely dangerous situation. One of the objections to rearming had been that we didn’t want to provoke Hitler!
It is of course true that there were genuine Nazi sympathisers in pre war Britain but they were a small minority though they did include the then Prince of Wales.
1935: Stroppy Schoolgirl
Miss Jones is having a bad day. Looking at her I suspect that none of them are that good.
1935: ‘The White Man’s Burden’
It is not often that the British Empire gets noticed in the pages of Punch in 1935. This cartoon is a typical example of those that did appear. Utterly politically incorrect today this kind of thing was considered quite acceptable at the time. Here the ‘natives’ are shown to be simple but well meaning. The man behind the desk is (of course) white and trying to cope. In fact, he doesn’t seem to be making too good a job of it.
I imagine that the drawing is based on actual colonial experience. I have just a slight hesitation on this point because I don’t see a ceiling fan in the office – something that was standard during my days in Singapore just 20 years after this cartoon appeared. On the other hand, this scene may be taking place at high altitude in which case ceiling fans aren’t needed.
1935: Mistaken Identity
It seems that the tramp on the right had mistaken the well-off hiker on the left as another ‘gentleman of the road.’ Looking at the hiker it is quite possible to see how the mistake was made.
1935: A Topical Cartoon
Tabloid headline writers don’t recognise the difference between today’s weather and the underlying trend. This cartoon reminds us that such a basic situation is not new today.
1935: Poor George
His mother in law is only concerned with her and daughter’s plight. No doubt she thinks he has got stuck on purpose.