I have posted a version of this on the
Bus Nostalgia thread, but for those not interested in buses and coaches, I thought I would start a separate thread on this subject, which one way and another has affected our lives, even if you are young, old, or in-between!
Sign written advertisements were once part of our childhood; a wonderful form of artwork that fascinated certainly my young mind and has stayed with me ever since.
The enamel signs that still adorned so many railway walls, fences, chimneys, in fact everywhere you looked. No tatty paper, short term advertisements then, but long term statements of intent - we have a great product - it is quality - you should buy it, and it is here for good like our enamel sign!
In my early years in retailing, in the newsagent, confectioners and tobacco trade, quality advertisements for "Player's Senior Service", or "Weights Tipped", and Capstan Full Strength" cigarettes were still everywhere. Even confectionery could still be found in jars and tins; I still have a Squirrel's Confectionery tin that contained Floral Gums (mmmmmmmmm!!), which inside the lid proudly, permanently, states "Squirrel Confections" made by The Squirrel Confectionery Co. Ltd., Stockport, England
Although a container for use once, it was permanent; it reflected a society that was not going to change! It was there; British society, safe, stable, reliable, of quality, and permanent!! So were the enamel signs, and the other handwritten ones on the sides of the buses and coaches we have been reviewing. It was all quality, and then of course it was legal to advertise tobacco products, so with the vast majority of the population then smokers in some form or another, they were advertised everywhere!
To remind me of what we had then I have pictures in my many treasured railway books which show the "Virol" , "Castings West Yorkshire Foundries Ltd.", "Mackinlay's Scotch Whiskey", Drink Camp It's the best", "Sunlight Soap", "Player's Please!", and many more enamel advertising signs of a past golden age on railway walls of every description! Yes, the huge advertising hoardings were starting to reflect the "new" products of the exciting, different, age of the late 1950s and 1960s, with the paper-on advertisements. But the old enamel signs were still there, and the signwritten ones specifically for the sides of buses, above shop windows, and along the front of Pickford's and the like, were still reflecting another old skill, trade, that now, like so many of the products advertised, have gone. Swept aside by cheaper, international brands in a world were things do not need to last; so reflects the advertising hoardings with flimsy paper adverts, with no need for long term sign written forms! Quality, gone; longevity, gone; the skills and trades that went with them, gone!
Our brave new world has pushed aside the signwriters and enamel sign makers, with computer generated graphics doing everything far cheaper. But is it what we really love? History will tell!
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Topic: Sign Writing & Advertising - A lost Art (Read 3621 times)