http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/Youth_zps7824caeb.jpg
1960: Things to Come…
These parents have no idea yet what they will have to endure during the next decade.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/OnTime_zpsc9a0ae14.jpg
1960: Can You Really Rely on the Tide?
Landlubbers are showing their ignorance.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/pollution_zps7f844207.jpg
1960: Not a New Problem
The meaning of this seems pretty clear to me. Councillor Tubbs wants the pollution to be dealt with. The mayor and the other Councillors want to pretend that it isn’t there.
It may be just a bit fanciful but I think here there is a reflection of the plot of Ibsen’s play ‘An Enemy of the People.’ There the ‘enemy’ is the scientist who points out that the town’s water supply is polluted. The remedy would be very expensive. Far from being grateful for his discovery (as he expects) the citizens refuse to believe his findings since they have all heavily invested in the spa. He is hounded out of town. Councillor Tubbs may well suffer a similar fate.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/swimmer_zpsa7c61b5b.jpg
1960: Jobsworth at Work
It is churlish not to congratulate the channel swimmer just because he was smeared in oil. I’m not sure but I have the impression that his modern equivalent manages without the oil.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/complacency_zpsaa3a63b5.jpg
1960: Art Experts
This seems to me to be an authentic example of how modern art is praised.
It sounds to me like ‘modern art’ experts try to outdo each other by talking in their own meaningless jargon with the ultimate intention of attempting to persuade others to part with enormous sums of money for their ridiculous products!
Didn’t I once see a TV documentary where they got a chimpanzee to paint a ‘modern art’ picture and invited some, subsequently very embarrassed, art experts to eulogise about them?
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/under_zps84eba266.jpg
1960: Sweeping Things Under the Carpet
The road sweeper isn’t going to find many cars that have been wrapped up in this manner.
Nowadays we have machines that sweep up litter and automatically transfer them into a container within the machine.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/Olympics_zpsc656b618.jpg]
1960: The Olympic Games in Rome
Although 1960 was 56 years ago the Olympic theme is very topical…
What is this joke about? My own theory is that it has nothing to do with Italian wine. We are shown what was must have been the official logo of the Rome Olympics. The readers of Punch were all assumed to have known about the legend of Romulus and Remus having been suckled by a she-wolf. The athlete’s wife is shown to have been ignorant of this and was warning her husband not to attempt what Rome’s founders were supposed to have done as infants.
So in my opinion, it’s a joke about ignorance among the ‘lower orders’. This was a common theme in many jokes in preceding decades but by 1960 this was becoming quite rare. This I suggest is an example of the earlier trend.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/collisuem_zpsaad149eb.jpg
1960: Sight-Seeing during the Olympics
The two ladies have confused the venue for the modern Olympics with the Colosseum, a well-known place of entertainment which was very popular in the ancient world.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/boutique_zps9d6ceddb.jpg
1960: Snobbery is not Dead
It would be ‘common’ to shout ‘shop’ in an upmarket boutique.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/roofrk_zps176c6c14.jpg
1960: Roof Racks
I remember roof racks. I suppose car boots were far too small to accommodate standard size luggage when going on holiday to places like Cornwall. The drawing here accurately demonstrates this. Nowadays we usually get enough space.
Those who want to take even more stuff with them now can have something different. I don’t know what it is called but it looks like an upturned boat enclosed in rigid shell. This makes it much more aero dynamic than those clunky arrangements that are illustrated in this cartoon. You don’t see many of those around anymore.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/shells_zps8509accc.jpg
1960: His Preference
She knows perfectly well why he is ‘listening’ to the shell.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/bedside_zpsb59e6246.jpg
1960: Doctor’s Home Visit
The doctor is too short in stature to attempt a standard stethoscope examination of the patient in the upper bunk bed. The artist has not only shown him as short but also made the gap between the beds larger than really necessary. The rope ladder between the two berths has just come unstuck presumably because the doc is too heavy.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/smoking_zps08f1e44c.jpg
1960: The Prevalence of Smoking.
This joke doesn’t exaggerate too much the amount of social smoking that used to go on at that time. As a non-smoker myself I used to find this trying not only at parties but at business meetings when nearly everyone would tend to light up when anything really difficult came up for discussion.
Looking back my impression is that the medical profession as a whole were still poo poohing any suggestion of a link between smoking and cancer. It was around that time that I saw a TV discussion on the subject. The earnest young man who spoke of this risk managed to outrage a spokesman for a tobacco company by describing him as a corporate drug peddler. Nowadays those companies would not put forward anyone as a spokesman.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/rolls_zpsa75f6176.jpg
1960: Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells
The elderly gent has just been carved up by a vehicle which is far less expensive than his. I expect that the old gent could drive much faster if her cared to. His Rolls would have had all the power that would have been needed.
Are we to assume that the cartoonist mean us to think that the miscreant really was an Old Etonian? I very much doubt it.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/strike_zps2a52b5d7.jpg
1960: Industrial Relations
As far as my memory goes industrial relations began to feature in the news in the early seventies. Because strikes were so frequent broadsheet newspapers found it necessary to employ industrial correspondents. These people would explain the intricacies of differentials, gradings and the internecine feuds of different trade unions. This cartoon, appearing as early as 1960, causes me to revise this impression.
The cartoon itself reflects the upper middle class bias of the magazine. The union official is depicted as self-important and quite prosperous. The pickets are not disposed to trust him. I suspect that this is just wishful thinking on the part of the management.
The pickets and the official are all wearing head gear which don’t coincide with my recollections either.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/ambulance_zps766a122d.jpg
1960: Three for the Price of One
The public-spirited citizen realises that this is a case in which all three services are needed for the same emergency. Burglar jokes have always been a stock in trade in the pages of Punch. The miscreant sportingly wears a mask so that everyone will know what he is.
1960: Beatniks
Beatniks as early as 1960? I wasn’t aware of them until 1967. I can recall the actual occasion.
Interesting. It made me think about when did the now-common ‘teenage rebellion’ actually begin. Of course, beatniks weren’t the first; we had teddy boys, mods and rockers before that, and probably others even earlier although I’m not sure what they called themselves.
In any event, young people dressing in a peculiar fashion to demonstrate that they know better than older people(!) is probably a 20th Century phenomenon.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Myalbum/foodie_zps53a7a1a0.jpg
1960: A Perfect Match
This drawing suggests a happy convergence of two mutually compatible interests. I don’t see any hidden agenda at all here.
That hairstyle used to be called the beehive, didn’t it?