![]() And it’s been spoofed and parodied many times over (‘Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake’), often with the crown device substituted for a more fitting emblem. Apparently, it is particularly popular in the US and Germany, with financial firms and advertising agencies. The phrase has since become an industry in itself with ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ products being bought and sold all over the world. It now brings up a cool 42m hits on Google. In this wave of interest in the phrase, it soon relocated to mugs, mouse mats, T-shirts and beyond. The subsequent increase in demand for the poster broke the shop’s website, says Manley, and the staff were immediately put on packing duties. As more and more customers enquired about obtaining a copy, the Manleys printed up an initial batch of 500, and had sold a few thousand before the poster was featured in a Guardian supplement in December 2005. Admiring the bold red and white design – the only graphic concession is a George VI crown above the text – they framed the poster and hung it by the shop’s till. Stuart Manley, who runs Barter Books with his wife Mary, discovered it folded up at the bottom of a box of books they had recently bought from auction. With only a few rare copies in existence, the phrase effectively remained unknown for 60 years, until an original of the poster was discovered in a bookshop in Alnwick, Northumberland in 2000. It was kept in reserve only to be used if the country was invaded – after the war the entire series of posters was pulped. Yet despite being printed by the Government’s Ministry of Information on around 2.5m posters in August 1939, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ was never actually seen in public, according to research conducted by historian Dr Rebecca Lewis. In part, this is due to the nostalgic appeal of its stiff-upper-lip sentiment, delivered in clipped alliterative RP, but the timing of its reappearance as a recession loomed could not have been bettered. Similarly resonant, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ has now perhaps become the most famous of the lot. ‘Dig for Victory’, ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’, ‘Make Do and Mend’ have become classics of the medium, the latter gaining a new relevance in these frugal times. A small number also remain in the National Archives and the Imperial War Museum in London, and a further 15 were discovered in the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow to have been given to Moragh Turnbull, from Cupar, Fife, by her father William, who served as a member of the Royal Observer Corps.īy 2015 the popularity of this theme seemed to be on the wane.A handful of British second world war propaganda posters employed slogans that are still well known today. However, nearly 60 years later, a bookseller from Barter Books stumbled across a copy hidden amongst a pile of dusty old books bought from an auction. It is believed that most of the Keep Calm posters were destroyed and reduced to a pulp at the end of the war in 1945. Other companies followed suit, and the design rapidly began to be used as the theme for a wide range of products. The couple framed it and hung it up by the cash register and it attracted so much interest that Manley began to produce and sell copies. in Alnwick, Northumberland, was sorting through a box of used books bought at auction when he uncovered one of the original “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters. In 2000, Stuart Manley, co-owner with his wife Mary of Barter Books Ltd. Over 2,500,000 copies were printed, although the poster was distributed only in limited numbers, and never saw public display. It was intended to be distributed in order to strengthen morale in the event of a wartime disaster and in particular German Invasion. The poster was initially produced by the Ministry of Information, at the beginning of the Second World War. A range of items proclaiming the Second World War Slogan “KEEP CALM, CARRY ON”, straight and humorous ![]()
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