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Calm reminder of wartime carries on sending its message
They're five little words which are becoming hard to avoid.
Keep Calm and Carry On was the soothing slogan designed by the Ministry of Information during the Second World War in readiness of a Nazi invasion.
More than two million copies of the poster, the third in a series of motivational bill boards which had begun with Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory and the more succinct Freedom is in Peril, were held in storage, the plan to unveil them if German troops managed to cross the Channel.
The worst case scenario never happened, but almost 70 years on, as the recession deepens and uncertainty reigns supreme, the slogan has suddenly found itself a whole new audience. Emblazoned on everything from mugs to key rings and cufflinks, Keep Calm and Carry On has never seemed more appropriate.
As the global financial meltdown continues, Gordon Brown has a copy of the poster hanging in 10 Downing Street, as does the Serious Fraud Squad and the Lord Chamberlain's Office at Buckingham Palace. David Beckham apparently has the T-shirt.
"In times of difficulty people are brought together by looking for common values or purposes, symbolised by the crown and the message of resilience," says social psychologist Alain Samson. "The words are also particularly positive, reassuring, in a period of uncertainty, anxiety, even perhaps of cynicism."
The origins of the Keep Calm and Carry On resurgence lie in a small Northumberland bookshop. Back in 2000, Simon Manley, who runs Barter Books in Alnwick with his wife Mary, found one of the few remaining original posters in the bottom of a box of hardbacks he'd bought at auction. Having framed it and hung it in the shop, the Manleys began to be inundated with requests and the couple began to produce facsimile versions.
To date, they have sold some 41,000 copies and the bandwagon looks unlikely to be halted any time soon. A book of the same name due out later in the year promises to provide good advice for hard times.
Including quotations from the likes of Mark Twain ("A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is
shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain")
and Harry S Truman ("It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own"), it's being tipped as the recession's answer to Schott's Original Miscellany.
Inspired by Keep Calm and Carry On, experts at London's Imperial War Museum are also now suggesting there's more lessons to be learnt from other Second World War initiatives which encouraged people to wage their own war against waste and boost the war effort.
From the Make Do and Mend pamphlets which had tips on how to repair clothes to the Dig For Victory campaign which promoted allotments and home-grown vegetables, the advice given to the public during the war years now suddenly looks like a commonsense antidote to the recent years of excess.
"During the Second World War the British people had to endure many sacrifices and hardships in order to defeat Hitler," says senior Imperial War Museum historian Terry Charman.
"Nearly all foodstuffs, clothes, fuel and household goods
were either rationed or in short supply. Stringent economies were sought and met in every British home.
"Sixty years ago, the government encouraged people to travel shorter distances by foot to save fuel, households were encouraged not to throw anything away that could be consumed and the Stay at Home holiday scheme was launched to persuade people to enjoy the attractions closer to home.
"We may not be at the point where we need to ask people to paint a line in their bath tub to ensure they don't use more than five inches of water, but in a recession the challenges of consumption remain. Energy prices, for example, rose 40
per cent last year, add to that tax hikes and the increasing cost of living and these are challenging times.
"To meet and overcome them, we can learn much from the lessons of 1939-1945. It might all seem a bit overwhelming, but Keep Calm and Carry On remains the most important wartime tip of all. Things can only get better."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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