She is so overcome by the view she forgets that Henry isn’t in a position to enjoy it.
I have personal memories of motoring in the 1930s. My father seemed to have to spend quite a bit of time like Henry either underneath the car or tinkering with the bonnet lifted. I remember that when I started to drive in the 1960s I vaguely expected to have to do the same sort of thing and was pleasantly surprised that this was not so.
There were only two manual interventions that I was then expected to do. One was to check the oil pressure with a dipstick. The other thing was using the starting handle in damp or very cold conditions and very useful it then was. All that is well in the past now.
The cartoonist has closely observed his subjects, their clothes and their conversations.
On the basis of what he has been told Junior asks a reasonable question. What indeed was the big idea? What Pop presumably didn’t know was that the term Horse Guard is a shortened description of those mounted soldiers who historically were responsible for protecting the life of the sovereign. It wasn’t the horse that was being guarded but (in a purely notional sense) the then current king, George the Fifth.
They still stand on sentry duty outside the building known as Horse Guards. They perform various ceremonial duties such as escorting the Queen on the occasion of the State Opening of Parliament. The soldiers aren’t actors; they perform these duties when not serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The horses, fortunately for them, stay at home.
We now take it for granted that women may choose to wear trousers or skirts at will. The pages of Punch chronicle the beginning of this trend. We have already witnessed the lady cyclist asking the way to Wareham. That was in 1899. It was at this time that the benefits of cycling made it possible for some women to question the inexorable rule that men wear trousers while women wear skirts.
At the top of the page where for specific reasons there are some already acceptable departures from the norm in 1932. But this cartoon goes on to speculate that the norm itself would in time disappear. This has turned out to be the case but not precisely in the way that the artist has predicted.
The scene at the bottom left hand side of the picture suggests that women would be wearing trousers not for any special occasion but for everyday wear. It doesn’t exactly give a foretaste of the trouser suit but it provides an interesting insight into how some people eighty years ago were trying to come to terms with modernity.
1932: An introduction to the use of the vernacular
I don’t have a problem with the use of slang. Its purpose is usually to bind together the people who use it to the deliberate exclusion of those who don’t. Although I am unfamiliar with this use of the word ‘hag’ I am quite prepared to believe that in the early 1930s it was in use among the ‘bright young things’ of the time (when speaking among themselves) to mean one’s fiancée.
I had previously made the mistake of thinking that he was describing him mother to his fiancée – instead of the other way round. The young lady looks perfectly happy at his use of this word so it must be all right. This must be an early example of using a word to mean its opposite, such as the more recent use of the word ’wicked’.
This leaves the parents and the vicar looking like old fuddy duddies who are not familiar with the slang.
I too thought Hag was only to describe someone old ,strange how slang can mean something totally differant from one generation to another ,
Id hate to be introduced as the Hag ,it sounds horrible.
No danger of getting it wrong here. The message clearly is that just sometimes you will be in fashion when you aren’t even trying. Like the clock that isn’t working being ‘right’ twice every twenty-four hours. The two women’s appearance is being complemented by each of their male escorts. The older woman’s escort looks rather raffish and the younger’s is ‘just the thing’.
The occasion seems to be the annual Eton and Harrow cricket match.
Jokes told at the expense of the nouveaux riches are quite common in the pages of Punch. They may be rich but they don’t understand what it is to be one of us. So he misunderstands his visitor’s complimentary remark about the house. Everything about him shows that he lacks ‘breeding’. Note the contrast between the visitor’s posture and clothing and those of the house’s owner. The fellow’s even got his hand in his pocket!
This reminds me of a remark said to have been made about Michael Heseltine when he was aspiring to lead the Conservative Party. A grandee is supposed to have said ‘He’s the sort of man who buys his own furniture.’
This cartoon is by no means meant to be taken as a joke. The readers of Punch would have been aware of what had been happening to the British (and indeed the world) economy by 1932. This cartoon served to reassure them that other readers were experiencing similar loss of disposable income.
Their deprivation would not be remotely like those who were suffering from years of dire hardship due to unemployment especially in the industrial cities. There was nothing like the same safety net as there is today. The misery then experienced was far more intense.
The two ladies in the cartoon and the readers of Punch they represented would not have been likely to suffer directly from unemployment. (Those that did would in time cease to be readers.) Probably the biggest cause of income reduction would have been the effect of reduced dividends as the economy shrank.
It was not until the late 1930s that some sort of recovery began to take place. It was only with the outbreak of war in 1939 that unemployment was finally eliminated. In the meantime Punch had to soldier on with what I would guess was a reduced readership. The need to tighten one’s belt would make the odd appearance along with the usual fare to act as a welcome distraction.
This cartoon can validly be seen as a continuation of the one previously featured. In the top right hand corner of each scene we see a sign proclaiming that the two couples are staying at an AA approved hotel somewhere in the UK on the coast. Touring at ‘home’ was cheaper than going abroad.
The joke is that the two couple are unsure whether they should have dressed up or dressed down for dinner so next evening they each reverse their previous choice. It shows that they all want to conform but are unsure of what the norm actually is.
It is quite a neat idea and attractively pictured but I found a couple of problems with it. I was immediately puzzled by the dressing down versions. Bearing in mind that car ownership in 1932 was a minute proportion of what it is now it is clear that both couples are in spite of the slump fairly well heeled. Could they really have thought that those skimpy clothes could have been appropriate eveningwear at a substantial hotel? Those outfits look as though they would have been worn at a fancy dress party or perhaps the Chelsea Arts Ball.
I then thought about the dressing up options. The man on the right on the first evening is wearing a dinner jacket – that is, a black tie outfit. There is nothing implausible about a dinner jacket having been at that time brought on holiday and worn in the evening for dinner. His wife is also appropriately dressed in what (in my total ignorance) I might think of as a cocktail frock.
But consider the man on the left on the second evening. He is dressed in white tie and tails. His lady wife has got her ball gown on and has brought her tiara! That is surely way over the top.
At this point I decided that cartoonist has decided on deliberate exaggeration. The dressing down options are too understated and the dressing up options are overstated. My hunch is that what really ‘happened’ was that for the men dressing up meant a lounge suit with a tie (obviously) and dressing down meant a Harris Teed Jacket with grey flannel trousers also with a tie (obviously). The ladies’ outfits would also have avoided the extremes shown in the cartoon.
However if he had illustrated my two possibilities it would have made a far less entertaining cartoon. His is certainly is fun to look at.
This is quite a witty cartoon. The narrative is couched in City jargon but it describes how a city type wishes to ride at speed without having acquired the necessary skills. The horse is not happy at being grasped by the neck and is about to ‘throw’ its inexperienced rider. That will certainly ‘dissolve the partnership’.
I am assuming that the scene is set in Rotten Row where the fashionable elite would exercise their horses. I am wondering about the significance of the bearded man riding a magnificent white horse. Is he perhaps a Park Ranger? Perhaps he is there to show that you do not need fancy clothes to ride a horse, though you do need years of experience which the object of this picture clearly lacks.
Note also the lady opposite who seems to be smirking. She is not one of those female pioneers of fashion when it comes to riding a horse. Since her riding habit includes a skirt she obviously cannot sit astride. She has to perform the difficult feat of riding sidesaddle. This means that she sits sideways with both feet placed one side of her horse. Her torso is twisted round so that she is facing in the same direction as the animal. She holds her reins just like a man but it is more difficult for her to avoid falling off. I have read that in later life these women often suffered from severe spinal problems.
Once again this is a story being told of people who have lots of money but lack the background which cannot be purchased with cash.
It is clear that the American girl wishes to dance. She is sitting there waiting for the opportunity if only someone will ask her. The ship’s officer knows this perfectly well and as host he takes responsibility for providing her with a dancing partner. He asks the question discreetly not only out of politeness but also to give her the opportunity for stating a preference. She looks keenly at the two Scottish Lowland infantry officers wearing the mess kit of their regiment which includes tartan trews with which she identifies them.
When crossing the Atlantic as a passenger in First Class she will have sat on the deck enveloped in a huge tartan blanket known as a steamer rug. Perhaps she has confused the name of the blanket with the tartan pattern with which it is made. The cartoonist is not laughing at her but finds that her mistake is quite charming.
I have wondered why it was necessary for this intervention. Surely there were plenty of unattached men present such as the two in the foreground who would voluntarily have asked the young American miss for a dance? The only theory I can up with is that they hadn’t been introduced. That certainly is not necessary nowadays but perhaps 80 years ago it would have been required.
The ship’s officer will now walk over to the army officers and ask them if they would like to dance with this young lady. Being gentlemen they could hardly refuse and all three would then walk over to where she is sitting and the naval man would introduce the other two. Then it would be in order for them to offer, in turn, to dance with her, an offer which she will gladly accept.
And who knows what would have been the consequence of that, if any?
There are two ways of looking at this scene: then and now.
I think that in 1932 people would have thought that the vicar was entirely justified in expecting to be treated as above suspicion and that the custom official should indeed have realised this by simply looking at the clerical collar. There are many other cartoons of the time, which point to the stupidity of foreigners.
Today we would say that the vicar was suffering from the ‘Englishman abroad’ syndrome. That was the time when told that someone didn’t speak English the tourist would just talk more loudly convinced that everyone surely ought to understand. As a clergyman he ought to have known that his appearance meant nothing in a Muslim country
It is now quite hard to imagine how people in Britain could have been so arrogant. In today’s world customs officials in Muslim countries would know perfectly well what this collar means and would probably search more thoroughly someone who is so dressed. It is well known that smugglers use nun or priest disguises to try and evade a thorough search. I would guess that a genuine clerical person going abroad today would leave the dog collar at home.
She views the Great Depression as an obstacle to the purchase of a new dress on which she has set her heart. Her argument is not likely to sway Willie since he is only too aware of the flaw in her logic which to her seems sound enough. Instead of asking for her husband’s approval it would be wiser to go ahead with her purchase for exactly the reason that she has blurted out.
John Maynard Keynes would, had he been a family friend, have advised her to use the ‘spend your way out of a depression’ argument. However, whereas Keynes saw the problem at a macro economic level Willie is focussing entirely on the (very) micro economic level.
There is also in this sketch a very rare fashion note for the gentlemen. This man is wearing spats. These curious garments went out of use a long time ago. I have just one memory of them in actual use. They were being worn by the elderly senior physics master arriving at my Grammar School on a particularly cold morning in the winter of 1944/45. I am sure that he removed them once he was in the Staff Room.
I had understood that they were intended to bring warmth to the calves and to keep the shoes clean when there is a lot of slush on the pavement. (I must admit that Wikipedia doesn’t support that impression.) I am also surprised that Willie is wearing them in the house while just reading the depressing financial news. He doesn’t need them for the purposes that I have mentioned. To the modern mind they look unnecessary and completely out of place.
The Hawkins family have committed a whole heap of crimes in the opinion of the cartoonist.
In the first place they are town dwellers who are woefully ignorant of the ways of the countryside. They have not parked in a designated parking place probably because none existed at the time. I suspect that they are trespassing on someone’s field. They are totally unaware of the eyesore that they leaving behind. So much so that Mrs Hawkins is asking Bert whether they have left anything behind when we can see that the trail of rubbish is exactly what they have left behind. I expect that they won’t even bother to close the gate of the field when they drive off.
But their biggest crime is that though ignorant they are by no means poor. Note the hampers, the debris of the meal just consumed and most importantly, the motor car. Only middle class people could afford to buy a car at that time. This family didn’t squeeze into a Ford Tin Lizzie. Theirs is a powerful open top saloon car which can easily accommodate five adults, two children and a dog. That’s quite a big outlay there.
So the message is again about people who have the money but lack the manners that ought to accompany it. At least that’s what the Punch thought that it’s readers would think.
They hadn’t even put out the fire that they had lit…
True to her name Mrs Deadleigh has assembled a dreary collection of unresponsive misfits who seem to have nothing to say to each other. There isn’t even the crushing bore who thinks that he is the life and soul of the party but isn’t.
The young guest is pleased that the resident dog is very happily performing tricks in return for treats. This is much more rewarding than trying to get this awkward collection to say anything at all.
Her mistake was to refer to this fact.
The artist has deftly shown the sheer depression and boredom of everyone except the young lady and the dog.
Intrigued by the early developments of television the cartoonist attempts to predict future useful applications of this important discovery. This particular idea would not have worked because this patient would have needed her own transmitter.
However later developments in electronics have now made this scene entirely feasible provided only that both doctor and patient were equipped with an Internet capable PC, a webcam and Skype software. Today these are not very demanding requirements. Using this combination many a grandparent is now able to converse regularly with grandchildren who live far away, quite possibly at the other end of the world, with the added pleasure of observing them as they are growing. Furthermore, there is no charge for either of the two parties to the call.
However, I doubt whether nowadays any medical practitioner would ever agree to participate in such a consultation.
