Tuesday is great London books day on
The Daily
Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations
at the usual email
address
Recently we’ve been focusing on guide books
here on The London Reading list – by which we mean books written by London Walks guides. Click HERE and HERE to catch up.
This week’s guide book is a different
affair altogether. Fifty one years old, and not the sort of thing you’d be able
to grab at Foyles every day of the week, the official guide book for the
Festival of Britain is a fabulously evocative piece of work.
It opens with photographic portraits of the
Patrons of the Festival – King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. And the whole
thing is bookended with advertisements for the popular products of that austere
age. Noteworthy is the full page for Heinz, which takes great pains to point
out that “The British House of Heinz” had been established for 55 years,
predating both world wars and presumably hoping to rid the name of any connotations
linking it with our then recent foe – the Festival of Britain celebrated peace
in our time, but the “P.R Disaster” still presented a clear and present danger
in the world of cold economics.
The ad for No.7 cigarettes features a posh
couple at the races, and suggests that glamour and riches are simply a puff
away. All one needs do is change one’s brand of gasper.
The ad for Cow & Gate baby food states:
“We all know a Royal Baby [capitals sic] is bound to be given the best that is
obtainable.” Could they be referencing the birth of Princess Anne in August of
the previous year?
The content of the guide maps out the South
Bank location of the festival. The South Bank as we know it today was laid out
to accommodate this “Tonic For The Nation”, a celebration for Londoners at a
time when rationing and shortages, as well as bomb sites, still dominated
London life.
The stated aim in the guide is “to bring to
the British way of life some enrichment that will endure for long after the
Festival year is over.” And indeed the Royal Festival Hall remains one of the
capital’s finest concert halls. Not only that, but it is thanks to the Festival
of Britain that we can enjoy the run of this part of our riverside.
The site of The Festival of Britain can be
seen on the Somewhere Else London walk every Tuesday and Saturday.
A copy of this highly collectible London
book is on sale at The London Bookstore online.
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