I have distinct memories of writing with pen and ink – before fountain pens let alone ballpoints. Getting the right amount of into the nib was the secret. Too little and you can’t produce anything legible. Too much and you make a mess instead of a readable script. The animal here is losing the plot. My attempts were never as bad as this but it was a frustrating business. The present of a fountain pen freed me from this tyranny. I would have thought that by 1954 everyone had access to a biro.
We weren’t allowed to use biros at school, just those ink pens with a cheap scratchy nib at the end of a stick you had to dip in an inkwell set into our desks, one of the class being appointed as the ink monitor to keep them topped up.
Who has not worried momentarily whether all was well at home. These days, the man in the tropics could have set up a web cam permanently broadcasting from his living room. Another benefit from modern technology.
I was always jealous of the little watering can the ink monitors used at our school…I remember too always having ink blotches on my fingers overloading the pens we were given…oh and pressing on too hard made the nibs split and you got in trouble.
The parents have been using the perambulator to carry all their shopping. These days there are many alternatives open to the young couple. The modern buggy, although much easier to navigate, is not a suitable way of carrying the shopping.
In the cartoon there is none of the present-day packaging for their purchases.
Thelwel has created an absurd fantasy. The four teachers are hurrying the girls to place their faces in the slots to which they are allocated. How would this be better than just appearing as they are? It would look a lot tidier which I suppose is the object of this exercise.
Notice how each teacher has a different way of hurrying the girls.
Back then in 1956 this action would have been regarded as lacking in respect. The hapless Guardsman should have remained impassive and not worried. Nowadays tourists would no doubt be taking selfies and the soldier would no doubt be doing the right thing.
The scene seems to be a stately house. The visitor does not relate to the ancestral portraits of women but the mirror shows something to which can relate.
There was quite a craze for Unidentified Flying Objects at the time. Conspiracy Theory devotees were having a great time. After a time ‘sightings’ seemed to disappear.
This is the first of two drawings on a common theme by Ronald Searle who was most famous for his St Trinians cartoons. There tended to be morbid element in his drawings. This is no doubt due to his experience as a prisoner of war under the Japanese during World War Two.
