Advert - Aspro featuring Dickie Valentine (1950's)

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Dickie Valentine had 14 Top 30 hits between 1954 and 1959 and was killed in a car crash in 1971. Aspro (Aspirin) may not harm the heart but if you are brave enough check the side effects online.

Advert - The Colony Restaurant (1950's)

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Felix King had a residency at the Colony Restaurant from 1950 until 1959. As far as I can tell the restaurant was part of the Colony Club where ageing film star George Raft acted as host for several months in 1966 before being deported as an 'undesirable alien'.

Wally Griffin was an American comedian possibly worth staying awake until midnight to see.

Advert - Join the WRAF (1959)

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Join the Women's Royal Air Force in 1959 and enjoy all the thrills of sitting in a bunker in East Anglia and staring at a Radar screen for hours on end. But at least you'll get your own personal mirror light!

Advert - Guinness beer (1950's)

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The Guinness 'smiling face' was so well known by the 1950's that this advert doesn't even show the brand name. Drawn by 'Douglas' but I can't identify him online.

Advert - Philishave Electric Razor (1950's)

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Freddie Truman was apparently a cricketer who played for Yorkshire and Peter Haigh a BBC TV announcer. In the 1950's they apparently used a Philishave electric razor. I think Jack Train was an entertainer. Or a cricketer.

Advert - Butlin's for Honeymoons (1950's)

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The 1950's were the heyday of Billy Butlin's holiday camps. He started building hotels in 1953, Blackpool and Cliftonville followed in 1955. Who'd want to be woken up on their honeymoon by a hearty 'Rise and shine' every morning?

Advert - Gamages Store (1950's)

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1950's Gamage Store. I worked opposite it in the 1960's and spent many a lunch-hour exploring its nooks and crannies. Typical that an advert for business suits would also include archery bows - they stocked everything.

Advert - Kodak featuring John Mills (1958)

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1958 advert for Kodak camera film featuring film star John Mills star of that year's 'Dunkirk'.

Cutting - Daily Express Comic Strips (1958)

26th July 1958

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Despite Ian Fleming's misgivings about letting the Daily Express to strip cartoon his books, this 'James Bond' strip started on 7th July and ended on 13th December 1958 and was based on Fleming's book Casino Royale. It was scripted by Henry Gammidge and drawn by John McLusky who went on to illustrate 12 more Bond stories up to 1966. 

'Jeff Hawke' was created by Sydney Jordan and he had 69 adventures between 1955 and 1975. This strip is from the story 'The Dream Peddlers' which was scripted and drawn by Jordan. William Patterson wrote some of the stories. 

The surreal 'Four D Jones' by Peter Maddocks was about a time travelling cowboy and ran from 1955 to 1965. 

'Gun Law' drawn by Harry Bishop was based on the US TV series Gunsmoke that aired from 1955 until 1975. The star of the TV series, James Arness, is readily recognisable as Wyatt Earp in the strip.

Advert - Austin Healey Sprite (1958)

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The Austin Healey Sprite was introduced in 1958 by BMC and made at their MG factory at Abingdon. 0 - 60 in 20.5 seconds and a top speed of 83mph.

Cutting - Peter Manuel not Guilty (1958)

29th May 1958

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Peter Manuel was born in the USA of Scottish parents and moved to Scotland when he was 5. He was arrested in January 1958 and confessed to killing 18 people, but he was only tried on 8 counts of murder. As detailed above one of the charges was dropped due to lack of evidence, but despite conducting his own defence and almost convincing the jury of his insanity, he was found guilty of the other 7. He was hanged on July 11th 1958.

Also see this post. 

Advert - 'The Golden Disc' film (1958)

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'The Golden Disc' was known in the USA as 'The Inbetween Age' and starred Terry Dene who had a trio of hit records before being conscripted into the Army in 1958. He was discharged after only a couple of months due to ill-health. He left rock-n-roll behind to become an evangelist and I saw him at a local hall in Dagenham in the early 60's.

Cutting - Terrorists Kill Four in Malaya (1952)

13th February 1952

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The Malayan Emergency, as it was called, lasted from June 1948 to 1960 and was a deliberately low-key conflict pitting the British Army, The Malay Army and Malay Police against, mostly Chinese, Communist insurgents. The Communists never really had a chance of taking over the country because the indigenous Malay population and many of the resident Chinese did not support them.

Advert - Save Electricity (1950's)

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A 1950's plea to 'Don't switch on until the peak has gone' and 'keep the factories going' sound as if it could have come just as easily from the 3 Day Week of 1974.

Advert - 'Hunted' starring Dirk Bogarde (1952)

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Dirk Bogarde in Hunted, also known as The Stranger In Between. The boy in the film was played by Jon Whiteley who had a short 5 film career before eventually becoming curator of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Cutting - Frank Randle leaves West End Show (1952)

February 1952

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Frank Randle was a controversial Lancashire born comedian who was very popular in the 1930's but his career took a nosedive with the passing of variety in the 1950's. He suffered from bad health due to drinking, was bankrupt in 1955 and died in 1957. 'Televariety' ran from February 4th to 24th 1952.

Advert - Vidor Portable radio (1950's)

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The Lady Margaret portable radio manufactured by Vidor Ltd of Erith, Kent circa 1953/4. I hope that she won't be driving while it is playing on her knee. They also produced Lady Anne and Lady Elizabeth models - some sort of specifically targeted marketing strategy?

Cutting - Ronald Shiner Tops Film Poll (1952)

27th December 1952

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Published in December 1952 this poll of Britain's leading box-office attractions is headed by Ronald Shiner. I imagine anyone under 50 will ask, "Who?” Shiner made 86 films between 1934 and 1961. Surprisingly he is above such greats as Alastair Sim, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Trevor Howerd. This was when Britain had a film industry and 8 of the top 12 moneymaking films were British!

Random Cutting - Soho Midnight (1958)

June 22nd 1958

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Rock'n'Roll has become associated with Teddy Boys but the characters in these pictures are, to use the word coined only a couple of months earlier, beatniks, who tended to go in for cool jazz and reading Kerouac.

Random Cutting - Escaped Gunman (1958)

July 15th 1958

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James McKensie who was serving a 3 year sentence for armed robbery escaped from Wormwood Scrubs on July 13th 1958 along with 2 other men. I can't find out if he was caught.