Grey is the Colour of Hope

I popped into the Colchester branch of Waterstone's this morning to see if the recent change of ownership had made any difference. At first, it looked exactly the same, but then I noticed that the shelves seemed much fuller and there were very few annoying posters with banal bylines.

It felt more like a bookshop.

I suppose it was unrealistic to expect anything dramatic; after all, James Daunt's only been in the job for a couple of months. I shall have to go back later in the year.

I must have been scrutinising the shop a little too conspicuously, as a nervous-looking assistant made a beeline for me and asked if I needed any help. I think they thought that I was a mystery shopper. I was tempted to play along and start asking ridiculous question, but thought better of it.

I've never been a mystery shopper, but I used to pretend to be a restaurant critic. I'd dress smartly and turn up with a small clipboard, pretending to surreptitiously take notes which I made a great play of concealing every time a waiter approached. After ordering, I'd inspect the loos and ensure that I 'accidentally' walked into the kitchen, scanning the surfaces for any signs of dirt. As the evening progressed the waiters became increasingly attentive and at some point, I'd invariably end up getting at least one free drink (a decent one, not a thimblefull of Bailey's).

At the end of the visit, the waiters would wait by the door and, with anxious smiles, ask me if I'd had an enjoyable evening. I'd nod knowingly and reply "A very enjoyable evening indeed." Their relief was palpable.

Was that wrong? I never actually claimed to be anything I wasn't; I just let people infer it from my behaviour. Either way, it was good fun.

But I digress. Returning to Waterstone's, the shop looked good and it was packed, so perhaps there's still some hope for the high street bookshop. I hope so. The way everyone is talking about the 'Kindle', it feels as if the question about the demise of bricks and mortar bookselling is not if, but when.

However, I have uncovered evidence of a failed attempt at Kindle-style reading from the 1940s:

This book was published during the Second World War and although it looks perfectly ordinary on the outside, the contents reveal a bold new initiative in the publishing world. Black on grey:

"Black text on a grey background? It'll never work, Carstairs. It looks damnably awful!"

And that was the end of that. The book industry had to wait another 65 years before the Kindle made grey backgrounds acceptable.

But sometimes grey can be good:

I love cover designs like this from the 1960s, which have an elegance, simplicity and wit that has never been surpassed. In this post, Richard from Grey Area posted a comment that pointed out how much work went into creating such seemingly effortless designs.

Just a few years before 'Choral Verse', dustjackets like this were the norm:

This is a sex education book for young people from the late 1950s. I'm no expert on these matters, but I would have thought that the first thing they could do is take their raincoats off.

But I mustn't mock. It's actually quite a good book, full of dangerous, radical ideas, like trying to see things from the woman's perspective.

I'm not sure if these women needed any advice with delicate matters:


In the second picture, the urban sophisticate deals with a group of 'brigands' with barbed wit and condescension. I've tried that approach too, but with more mixed results.

There's something very appealing about the demi-monde of the period between the wars, but I'm also attracted to the innocence of children's book illustrations from the mid-20th century:

I expect that these children were called Peter, Joan, Colin and Kenneth and their parents didn't mind them sitting on the edge of tall buildings in the dark, because they were too busy getting 'tight' at the local yacht club.

Finally, four photos that turned up at work last week:


A very moody shot. Perhaps it's all a little too English for this gentleman.

The sporting Scotsmen theme continues with this appealing portrait of a young boy.

This couple are also from Scotland, but there's no evidence of any sporting activity.

Finally, a slightly disturbing portrait of Father Christmas:

I'm not sure what effect this Santa would have had on the young visitors to his grotto, but I'm sure that it can't have been as bad as the New York department store that had a sign outside which promised: 'FIVE SANTAS. NO WAITING.'

Lost and Found

I didn't set out to create a theme to this post, but today's book jackets have conveniently fallen into two distinct categories: Schoolboy Mayhem and Ladies in Africa (and I use the word 'ladies' deliberately).

First, if you thought that the British public school was the epitome of order and self-discipline, think again:

After pausing for a second to straighten his tie, Polson quickly lashes out at the new boy who has committed the double sin of being ginger and failing to leave the bottom button of his waistcoat undone, much to the amusement of a young Kenneth Williams at the far right. It's a jungle out there.

(NB - Richard at Grey Area has pointed out that this may actually be an early version of Gilbert and George's Bend It)

Things go from bad to worse at Prior's, the 14th best public school in Herefordshire. Here you can see the 17th Viscount Melrose administering a sound thrashing to a ghastly scholarship boy who keeps talking about the poetry and the 'brotherhood of man'.

Legend has it that the game of Rugby was born in 1823, when William Webb Ellis "with fine disregard for the game of football" picked up the ball and starting running with it. It was the beginning of a noble tradition.

The boys at Moorhaven School tried a similar thing in 1872, when Aubrey Gosling picked up a dead monkey and ran from the tuck shop to the cricket pavilion in under two minutes. The 'Monkey Run' quickly became a school tradition, but it never caught on.

With this book, there seems to be a slight dissonance between the sci-fi title and the image of a schoolboy being chased across a field. I can only presume that the bull isn't under alien control, so what's going on? Is that a deadly alien weapon they're holding?


This book isn't nearly as exciting as it sounds.

What interests me is how children's book covers have become far more 'touchy-feely" in recent years, whilst many of the stories have become darker.


This photograph was found in one of the books. At first it looks quite incongruous, but closer scrutiny reveals how pissed off everyone is.

The final three jackets all fall into the 'Ladies in Africa' category:

Moving to Africa, this cover seem to suggest dark passions ignited by the lure of the Casbah, although the dustjacket blurb clearly states that she falls in love with a man called Julian. I don't think that's a Moroccan name.

The rather convoluted dustjacket blurb reads:

"When Pudge Barton went on safari in Kenya with her friend Beryl and Beryl's father, Commissioner Newton, with whom she was staying for the summer holidays, she little knew what lay ahead..."

I've no idea what this novel's about, but I'd like to think that it is a sequel to 'Strange Safari':

"Jilted at the altar, when her fiance Rodney runs off with a 14-year-old Masai girl, Beryl Newton flees to Zanzibar, where she amuses herself by holding drinking competitions with foreign journalists. A life of alcoholism and penury beckons, but Beryl's fortunes suddenly change when her long-lost friend Pudge walks into the bar, accompanied by a woman smoking a pipe."

I feel as if I'm trawling through a golden age of book jacket design, between the plain, utilitarian covers from before the First World War, to the knowing, postmodern images of our time.

I can't imagine anyone laughing at the cover of the 'Da Vinci Code' in 50 years time. But all is not lost. We can still content ourselves with the absurd text.

The following titles, all found today, are shining examples of how society has changed:

"I say chaps! I've hear that Jenkins has a 6d Rhodesia and Nyasaland - dark blue!"

When did the word 'splendid' become embarrassing to anyone under the age of 75? I've no idea. All I know is that my brain is wired to say great, brilliant or excellent without a hint of irony, but splendid can only be uttered in a Terry Thomas comedy voice.

Manly tales by H. A. Manhood.

I'd never heard of Manhood, but according to this website:

"H. A. Manhood was one of the most highly regarded short story writers of the 1930s. His work was praised by John Galsworthy, Henry Williamson, Hugh Walpole and H. E. Bates, who was to become a good friend. His British and American publishers, Jonathan Cape and Viking respectively, thought so highly of him that they paid him a salary to give him the time and space just to write, a most unusual arrangement which demonstrated their respect for his work. His stories were in demand both from popular papers such as the Evening News and John O’London’s Weekly, and from more literary periodicals such as the London Mercury and the Adelphi."

Next, two titles that are horribly dated:


It's odd to think that covers like these were acceptable only half a century ago How far we've come.

Finally, it's not as kinky as it sounds:

This is actually a Christian book about drug addiction, but I wonder how many middle aged men in dirty macs bought this in error, only to be bitterly disappointed once they'd got back home.

I wonder which of today's books will excite similar shudders of horror and embarrassment?

"The Past is a Foreign Country"

It's a shame that L. P. Hartley's observation has been so overused that it now feels like a banal cliché, but that's the price to be paid for coming up with a good quote. To add insult to injury, Hartley didn't get a penny for it, whereas Lord Dundas (aka David "I've got my blue jeans on - ooh ooh" Dundas) was paid £10 every time his four-note jingle for the Channel Four ident was played. Life can be very unfair.

Anyway, to get to the point, today's illustrations are a good example of how social mores have changed over the last century.

We begin with a fine example of manliness and patriotism:

This heroic image is at odds with the indiscriminate, mechanised slaughter of trench warfare and I wonder what ex-servicemen must have felt when they saw images like this.

Next, we move forward a couple of decades to the Battle of Britain, when the RAF were busy teaching Jerry a lesson:

I expect that someone on the boat is saying "Gott in Himmel!" - one of the three stock phrases that war comics seemed to use (the other two being, of course "Achtung Spitfire!" and "Schweinhund!").

Viz comic once did a great satire of a Victor-style cartoon strip, in which a German submarine hits a Spitfire by firing a torpedo into the air, but its plucky RAF pilot dives underwater and machine-guns the submarine. It is patently absurd, but this 1940s book, featuring 'Flak' the dog, isn't that far removed from the Viz parody.

Sadly, Leonard 'Squiffy' Worthington is eventually shot down and he and Flak are sent to Stalag Luft III, but the ingenuity of the German prisoner of war camp isn't enough to stop man and dog from escaping:

Squiffy and Flak want to get back to England and continue fighting the Hun, so that they can make the world safe for young boys to admire swans:

'"Oh! How jolly!" Bryan exclaimed when first he saw the swan (page 70)'

'When first he saw the swan'? I didn't know that they had Google Translate back in the late 1940s.

Moving forward to 1954, here is a photo featuring 'Fabian of Scotland Yard'. Can you guess which person is Fabian? Also, make sure that you read the winning caption underneath:

Now we're in the lurid, steamy early 60s:

I initialy read the title as 'Sanitorium of Fear' but I think I was drawing from my own experiences.

"All because the bad girl was too much of a good thing"

Finally a very odd cover that looks as if two women are assaulting one of the Osmonds (and even worse, one of them might be Marie Osmond).

When I filled my tank up with diesel this morning, I was appalled to see that the total came to £61 and wondered how long I could afford to keep commuting to work. But after seeing today's selection of books, I know that I'd pay a much higher price if I left.