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london photography pubs

GALLERY: Home Front Beer, WWII

We recently discovered the Imperial War Museum digital archive which is (perhaps surprisingly) crammed with pictures of pubs, beer and brewing.

Here are some of the best shots of ‘everyday life’ on the home front during World War II shared under the terms of their non-commercial license. (Click the ID numbers to go to the IWM website for bigger versions and more info.)

A mixed group of uniformed men and a barmaid.
Allied soldiers in a London pub, 1940. © IWM (D 1725)
A dimly lit pub with soldiers in discussion.
Home Guard members in a pub in Orford, Suffolk, 1941. © IWM (D 4852)
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Categories
marketing

GALLERY: Guinness Time, 1967-1971

These wonderfully colourful covers for editions of the Guinness London staff magazine remind us of cartoons and children’s books from our childhoods, but could just as easily grace the sleeve of a Kinks LP.

Autumn 1967, front: Adam and Eve with the apple.
Autumn 1967, front.

Autumn 1967, rear: the Edenic serpent wraps itself around a bottle of Guinness.
Autumn 1967, rear.

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pubs

GALLERY: Modern Watney’s Pubs from Matchboxes

Detail of the Silver Sword.

These were carefully removed from matchboxes produced, we would guess, in about 1968, probably for sale in Watney’s pubs. (Any matchbox collectors who want to correct us, go for it.)

The Silver Sword, Coventry, which now looks like this.
The Silver Sword, Coventry, which now looks like this (Google Street View).
The Roebuck, Erdington, Birmingham, described in 2010 as 'like a wild west saloon'.
The Roebuck, Erdington, Birmingham, described in 2010 as ‘like a wild west saloon‘.
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Categories
Beer history breweries london

GALLERY: ‘You Ought to Know Whose Beer You’re Drinking’

Fuller's Brewery's Griffin icon.

These two leaflet were among the lovely pile of ephemera Steve ‘Beer Justice’ Williams sent us when he moved house.

The Young’s leaflet is dated 1979 and the Fuller’s one, we guess, is of about the same vintage.

Most notable is Young’s rhetoric — ‘You Ought to Know Whose Beer You’re Drinking’, ‘We don’t go in for chemical engineering’ — which sounds, we think, rather modern.

Sorry about the crappy ‘scans’ — our scanner is broken so we had to use a camera. Still, they’re readable, which is the main thing.

Categories
photography

PICTURES: Driving to the Pub, 1956

MG Magnette, blueprint plan.

A slightly odd one, this: we came across an old brochure advertising MG Magnette saloon cars dating from around 1956 featuring the following two wonderfully of-their-time images.

MG Magnette parked outside a pub, with two female models.

This is the brochure’s centrefold; the pub is the Barley Mow at Clifton Hampden, not far from Oxford.

MG Magnette parked outside a pub while two women have orange juice. (And vodka?)Anyone recognise this pub with a ‘Smokeroom Bar’? It’s probably in Oxford, we reckon. UPDATE: @guidomax on Twitter says this is the Crown & Thistle, Abingdon.