Anyone who can remember the Colgate advert in the block of ice will know that adverts can date, and is a reminder of how they did things very differently in the past.
In some cases, it is the presentation of the advert, and in others it’s the underlying assumptions which in the 1960s just assumed that housework, cooking and be worried about your children was the preserve of women, and that anyone who was not English was open to be portrayed as a stereotype.
And so, with that in mind here are a collection of adverts from 1962.
Some are those big ones which required a man, a ladder, and a pot of paste, and came in parts, which had to be aligned perfectly.
Today those same hoardings are delivered electronically and change every few minutes.
And then there were the smaller ones, often advertising a newspaper or magazine which were changed daily.
All of which leads me to this collection.
I have no idea where the pictures were taken but the presence of open spaces would suggest a part of the city undergoing a clearance programme or may be just some of the bits Mr. Hitler’s bombs did for.
Either way the adverts are fascinating, not least because of the prices advertised, and also the stories being run in the newspapers, which included a suspense serial in Reveille, entitled “No Chance In Hell” and “A girl called Johnnie, 20 Days in an Open Boat” from the Sunday Express.”
Reveille for those who don’t know was a popular weekly tabloid, which was launched in 1940 as the official newspaper of the Ex-Services’ Allied Association, and after it was bought by the Mirror Group in 1947 settled into presenting light news story with an emphasis on entertainment.
And I suppose the fun will be to spot those brands and newspapers which are no longer with us, while for the eagled eyed reader there will be the surprising discovery that nearly 60 years ago we were just as likely to discard our litter as we do today.
Added to which as the shop next to the newsagents will testify, this was still a time when something broke you asked someone to mend it, rather than go off and buy new.
Finally there is the question of just where we were back in 1962.
Enlarging the street sign above the newsagents offers up a number of possibilities, but all seem to fall by the wayside, as this was a road not a street and the listings in the directories show nothing that fits.
But then someone will know and come up with the answer.
Well I hope so.
And John Casey responded with "Rochdale Rd. My old area, moved out in 1963 as part of the slum clearance. The hoardings were erecred about 1958".
Location; Manchester
Pictures, advertising in 1962, Manchester, 1962 -3554.1 and 1962 -3554.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
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