The Week the King was Dead and Buried
Part 1 - they don't make them like that anymore.
I did say, a week or so ago, that I had another interesting find from the auctions, but as you'll have seen, things got in the way and I had to leave my time-capsule opened but un-blogged. But now, the time is right, I'll show my case, and lift the lid upon its contents.
It caught my eye because it was so unusual, a wooden suitcase with a diagonal-planked top. It was crammed so full of papers and magazines that the lid wouldn't close. I riffled around and pulled out a folded sheet of paper containing the plans for a Spad.
The Bleriot Spad was one of France's most famous World War 1 fighter planes, together with the Nieuport, and many of the American pilots who slipped surreptitiously across the Atlantic before their country officially entered the war flew these planes. The British had the SE5a, and the Sopwith Camel, and the Germans had the infamous Fokker, together with the sturdy and dependable Albatros. (Heh, some of you old poster-peeps thought I was a bleedin' seabird, innit).
After bidding successfully I got the case home and rummaged. There were no more plans of planes, most of the case was full of issues of a tuppenny-weekly A3-sized paper called 'Modern Wonder', and a similarly-named 'Modern World', dropping to A4 size for a modest increase in price of a halfpenny. Between them, they covered the late thirties through to the middle of World War 2.
I skimmed through a couple of issues, and was amazed to find that televison pre-dated the war; the first regular transmissions were already underway by 1936, with yellow being the fashionable colour for shirts worn by leading men in drama productions because it produced a better image than white.
There was a small cluster of papers lower down, nine copies of the Daily Mirror, recording the death and subsequent funeral of the king, George the Fifth. Nearly nine-tenths of each issue was taken up by this, it even displaced the football section of the paper for several issues, apart from reporting on the discussions as to whether the league matches should be postponed or played.
In typical scurvy-knave style, I found myself looking through the papers to see what non-royal news made the pages. The serialised 'Saint' stories continued each day, and I found this little gem on the ante-penultimate page of the January 21st issue, (which broke the news of the King's death to the nation.)
PHANTOM AVENGER "RULED" BY URGE TO BE WRECKER
"All my life I have had an impulse to destroy - an uncontrollable impulse."
This remarkable statement was made by a "Phantom Avenger," (name not reproduced here for sensitive reasons), twenty-one, of Wyke Regis, when he was sentenced at Dorsetshire Assizes yesterday to twelve months' imprisonment for fire-ricking and threatening to set fire to a dairy.
Mr. W. Maitland Walker, prosecuting, said ____________ wrote to Mr. T. Sapeworth, a farmer at Wyke Regis :-
"I shall destroy your dairy within a few days, whether you have a police cordon round it or not, as my highly scientific and complicated method of rick-firing cannot fail. --- The Phantom Avenger."
{snipped}
Asked by Mr. Justice Hawke if he had anything to say, _______ replied:
"If you sentence a man for an offence done on impulse, very likely you make him an enemy of society; but if you deal with me leniently, I shall always remember it as a kind act, and try to do my best to obliterate this blot on my character."
It makes you realise just how far Britain has declined since then, when villains and arsonists wrote to tell their victims in advance that they were to be targeted, and now, when graffiti artists are likely to spell innit with two T's. You've got to admire him, haven't you? He's almost Captain Queeg, solving the mystery of the strawberry ice-cream by logic and geometric proof.
So if they had had the internet back in those days, what would flaming have been like? "Sir (or Madam), be advised that upon the 13th inst, or thereabouts, I shall attend upon you through the medium of usenet, to denounce you for a person of little import, a shallow copier of other people's prose, a top-poaster hacing (sic) no more flair and style than a Babbage calculating-engine, whether or not you net-kopp me, for my methods are derived from Godel and Hilbert and are algorithmically sound.--- Teh Emporer of teh Greater Web, First Sealord of the Gobi Desert, High Protector of the Disbelief."
Nowadays all we get is 'ATTENSHUN, USENET, ALL YOUR VASE ARE PWNED!"
Yeah, phear me, phlorists and phlower-arrangers. Byrn teh suxx0rs. A p0x upon their keyboards.
There will be more anon, if it pleases you, my hordes.
I did say, a week or so ago, that I had another interesting find from the auctions, but as you'll have seen, things got in the way and I had to leave my time-capsule opened but un-blogged. But now, the time is right, I'll show my case, and lift the lid upon its contents.
It caught my eye because it was so unusual, a wooden suitcase with a diagonal-planked top. It was crammed so full of papers and magazines that the lid wouldn't close. I riffled around and pulled out a folded sheet of paper containing the plans for a Spad.
The Bleriot Spad was one of France's most famous World War 1 fighter planes, together with the Nieuport, and many of the American pilots who slipped surreptitiously across the Atlantic before their country officially entered the war flew these planes. The British had the SE5a, and the Sopwith Camel, and the Germans had the infamous Fokker, together with the sturdy and dependable Albatros. (Heh, some of you old poster-peeps thought I was a bleedin' seabird, innit).
After bidding successfully I got the case home and rummaged. There were no more plans of planes, most of the case was full of issues of a tuppenny-weekly A3-sized paper called 'Modern Wonder', and a similarly-named 'Modern World', dropping to A4 size for a modest increase in price of a halfpenny. Between them, they covered the late thirties through to the middle of World War 2.
I skimmed through a couple of issues, and was amazed to find that televison pre-dated the war; the first regular transmissions were already underway by 1936, with yellow being the fashionable colour for shirts worn by leading men in drama productions because it produced a better image than white.
There was a small cluster of papers lower down, nine copies of the Daily Mirror, recording the death and subsequent funeral of the king, George the Fifth. Nearly nine-tenths of each issue was taken up by this, it even displaced the football section of the paper for several issues, apart from reporting on the discussions as to whether the league matches should be postponed or played.
In typical scurvy-knave style, I found myself looking through the papers to see what non-royal news made the pages. The serialised 'Saint' stories continued each day, and I found this little gem on the ante-penultimate page of the January 21st issue, (which broke the news of the King's death to the nation.)
PHANTOM AVENGER "RULED" BY URGE TO BE WRECKER
"All my life I have had an impulse to destroy - an uncontrollable impulse."
This remarkable statement was made by a "Phantom Avenger," (name not reproduced here for sensitive reasons), twenty-one, of Wyke Regis, when he was sentenced at Dorsetshire Assizes yesterday to twelve months' imprisonment for fire-ricking and threatening to set fire to a dairy.
Mr. W. Maitland Walker, prosecuting, said ____________ wrote to Mr. T. Sapeworth, a farmer at Wyke Regis :-
"I shall destroy your dairy within a few days, whether you have a police cordon round it or not, as my highly scientific and complicated method of rick-firing cannot fail. --- The Phantom Avenger."
{snipped}
Asked by Mr. Justice Hawke if he had anything to say, _______ replied:
"If you sentence a man for an offence done on impulse, very likely you make him an enemy of society; but if you deal with me leniently, I shall always remember it as a kind act, and try to do my best to obliterate this blot on my character."
It makes you realise just how far Britain has declined since then, when villains and arsonists wrote to tell their victims in advance that they were to be targeted, and now, when graffiti artists are likely to spell innit with two T's. You've got to admire him, haven't you? He's almost Captain Queeg, solving the mystery of the strawberry ice-cream by logic and geometric proof.
So if they had had the internet back in those days, what would flaming have been like? "Sir (or Madam), be advised that upon the 13th inst, or thereabouts, I shall attend upon you through the medium of usenet, to denounce you for a person of little import, a shallow copier of other people's prose, a top-poaster hacing (sic) no more flair and style than a Babbage calculating-engine, whether or not you net-kopp me, for my methods are derived from Godel and Hilbert and are algorithmically sound.--- Teh Emporer of teh Greater Web, First Sealord of the Gobi Desert, High Protector of the Disbelief."
Nowadays all we get is 'ATTENSHUN, USENET, ALL YOUR VASE ARE PWNED!"
Yeah, phear me, phlorists and phlower-arrangers. Byrn teh suxx0rs. A p0x upon their keyboards.
There will be more anon, if it pleases you, my hordes.
Labels: Life before the web, literacy and lusers, the real Albert Ross owns up
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 3:42 pm
6 Comments:
If they had had the Internet before the war, it would most likely have been as you describe: quite formal. A lot like those clips you see of pre-war telly where all the presenters wore dinner jackets just to read the news. Apparently (can't recall offhand where I heard it) they also used to dress like that to read the news on the radio as well. No place for Chris Moyles back in those days eh?
do i envy you?
that is EXACTLY the kind of thing i would buy! i would be in ecstacies over the 'popular science' mags! and the plans and the papers and the actual suitcase itself, you see.
more? hell yes, more. get crackin.
Excellent post. I remember fondly the 1933 publication my old man had in his loft. It was a "Chronicle of the 20th Century". Absolutely fascinating stuff.
I have to say though that people were not particularly formal before the war, except in writing. They learned to write like that in composition class, which children more or less no longer have. Now they have "free expression". A dreadful thing, I'm sure you'll agree. It's led to everyone's thinking their opinion counts, which in turn leads them to express it without being bid.
Chris: not only did they dress for the radio mike, they even combed and creamed their hair, and Jimmy Edwards is reputed to have waxed his moustache. It might have been some actor's trick of visualising their audience?
FN: Stay tuned to Radio Retro :)
Dr Z: I never had composition classes, but I never had free expression ones either. I must have been in the transition generation. We were the semi-structured ones.
Wow, I'd love to be see all that stuff. It looks absolutely fascinating. Reminded me, too, about the Nipper comics my Dad showed me from when he was a kid. Hope he's still got them.
[Off to find some auction houses near Falmouth*...]
*erm, and some money.
Opoc, nice to know you're still around. Another old post will be along shortly.
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