I've been having fun reading an 80-year-old edition of Melody Maker,
which I bought as a present for a dear friend born in 1933.
One of the first things that strikes you is the similarity between the
preoccupations of creative people then and now.
The front-page story is about the threat of new technology, the horrors
of piracy, and the difficulty of getting paid for your work. Sounds familiar?
Inside, it's the little things that bring home the atmosphere of the time:
the very name of 'Spike Hughes and his Negro Orchestra' raises questions - and suggests some answers
- about attitudes to race in Britain in the year Hitler came to power in
Germany. Preconceptions about the
glamour of transatlantic liners are dispelled by Spike's diary about his US
tour:
"I have spent six days on the ocean, in that vacuum called a
transatlantic crossing, when nothing except meal times has any interest for one
whatever."
His reflections on the shortcomings of design and acoustics of Radio City Music Hall and
the Concert Hall in Broadcasting house (both now much admired) are fun, too:
"I wonder why architects persistently forget that music stands and instruments
take up a little room, and that a platform which will accommodate fifteen
upright waiters without trays will not, somehow, be large enough for one grand
piano and a five-piece band."
If you watched 'Dancing on the Edge' on the BBC earlier this year, you will
recognise the atmosphere of the jazz scene and in particular, I think, one new venue mentioned here: a hotel near Windsor, which still exists. The copy has more than a whiff of
'advertorial' about it.
But, best of all, it's the real adverts that tell us most about 1933:
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If you've read my book Johnny Swanson, which is set in 1929, you
will know that I'm a little unhinged on the subject of ancient advertisements.
I do find all aspects of them - from their design, through the information
about prices and values, to the unintentional messages they give about
aspirations and status - priceless tools for the historian or historical
novelist. They are a crucial means of
getting the 'feel' of an era.
Obviously, you can't take them
entirely at face value. After all, we
wouldn't want future generations to think that we went round supermarkets
beaming with excitement and tapping our bums with joy at the thought of saving a few pence. Will they believe that
we gave headspace to the latest innovations in disposable nappies, or that we
lived in immaculate clutter-free
kitchens, cleaned to a sparkling shine?
Let's hope not. But all the
same, there are messages about us in advertisements - even if some are not very
flattering.
The classified ads convey the mixture of hope, despair, and trickery that
are still with us today. There's inspiration for a story in every one. Why is that
saxophone being sold? Which deluded wannabe will buy help with their lyric
writing? Which failed lyric writer is
offering it?.
I hope my friend likes his present. I've certainly had a lot of pleasure from it
before wrapping it up.
www.eleanorupdale.
com
