You know this image, right? But can you guess where it came from? Clickie.
In the Spring of 1939, with war against Germany all but inevitable, the British Government's Ministry of Information (part of the Civil Service at that time, doncha know?), commissioned a series of propaganda posters to be distributed throughout the country at the onset of hostilities.
It was feared that in the early months of the war Britain would be subjected to gas attacks, heavy bombing raids and even invasion. The posters were intended to offer the public reassurance in the dark days which lay ahead.
They featured a particular typeface to make them difficult for the enemy to counterfeit, and the poster conveyed a message directly from the Sovereign to his people, to calm and re-assure them... The idea was to encourage a fortitude, an attitude of mind... Because what frightens governments most of all at times of crisis is panic...
At the end of August 1939 three designs went into production with an overall print budget of £20,600 for five million posters.
The first poster, of which over a million were printed, carried a slogan suggested by a civil servant named Waterfield. He would have been called Mr Waterfield, because all senior Civil Servants were Misters in those days...
Using the crowns of George VI as the only graphic emblem, the stark red and white poster read 'Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory'. A similar poster, of which around 600,000 were issued, carried the slogan 'Freedom is in Peril'.
But the third design, of which over 2.5 million posters were printed, simply read 'Keep Calm and Carry On'.
The first two designs were distributed in September 1939 and were posted in shop windows, on railway platforms, and on advertising boards across the country. But the 'Keep Calm' posters were stored away, intended for use only in times of crisis...
Although some may have found their way onto the walls of certain Government Offices (*cough*), the poster was never officially issued and so remained virtually unseen by the public - Until a copy turned up more than fifty years later in a box of dusty old books bought at auction by Barter Books' second hand book-shop owners, Stuart and Mary Manley .
The couple liked the poster so much that they had it framed and placed near the cash register. It attracted so many enquiries that Stuart and Mary decided to print and sell a facsimile edition which became a best-seller, both in the shop and via the internet.
What does it say about us today, that we have our nostalgic thinking caps on, and we are tappy lappying on back to Times of War, when money was tight, food was not plentiful... and the cat was asleep on the bacon-slicer down at the corner Grocery Store, which sold bully beef in finger-torture tins, with sell-by dates on them that would frighten the Kaiser...
And thus we find that this poster design has once again shivered its long fingers down the quivering spine of our Zeitgeist, encouraging us never to give up, but to fight 'them' on the beaches, as Winnie asked of us, with the King informing us to... Keep Calm and Carry On...
