Tip 'n Strip

True story. On Monday, my friend, colleague (and former pupil) Viv returned to the office after a week away. She gave us all presents, in my case a biro. I was in the middle of a phone call and only took a quick glance at it and saw a young woman’s head. I idly wondered if it was one of those novelty pens where, if you hold it point down to write with it the lady in the bathing suit on the barrel of the pen miraculously loses her clothes. When I had finished the call I had a closer look at the pen and realised the lady on it was the Virgin Mary. Viv had been to Lourdes with her church. Thanks goodness I had not voiced my suspicions to her. And no, before you asked, nothing happened to Our Lady’s image when I began to write with the pen.

Just out of interest the technology that made the wonders of the ‘tip n’ strip’ pen possible was, like lego, created in Denmark. Baker Peder Eskesen created the leak proof mineral oil sealing process for floating action pens in 1946. The company he created started to market the ‘tip n’ strip’ or ‘disappearing swimsuit’ pen in 1962.

Just out of interest, the first pen to use the floating oil technology was created for Esso, and featured a floating barrel of oil.

I really don’t know if the ‘tip n’ strip’ pen is commonly available any more, but if it is I’d guess it’s probably in seaside souvenir (crap) emporia. Which brings to mind one Wednesday morning seminar I took part in 43 years ago.  At that time the Warden of University of London Goldsmith’s College was Richard Hoggart, father of Simon and author of “Uses of Literacy”. He was a very interesting speaker, whose lectures under the guise of seminars were something I looked forward too. Even if he did remark once that he thought Mastermind was simply the most ridiculous programme on television. He was an incorrigible name dropper (he once told us he had to end the seminar early because he was going for a late breakfast with Graham Greene) and one of the names he once dropped was George Orwell. Rather than going into detail about any of the novels what he really wanted to do was to talk about Orwell’s 1941 essay on seaside posters and the work of Donald McGill.

McGill was the artist most clearly associated with the genre of ‘saucy seaside postcard.’ Reading his Wikipedia biog I was surprised to see that he was actually prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act 1857 as late as 1954. He apparently never received more than 3 guineas per design even at the height of his fame, and no royalties. So even though his most successful postcard “Do you like Kipling?” “I don’t know, you naughty man,I’ve never kippled.” has sold more than 6 million copies, he never received one penny for it after the initial payment.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think that the kind of humour in these postcards - you can call it innocent if you wish but I reserve my right to disagree – has stood the test of time. But when I was growing up in 70s it was still pretty mainstream. The Thames Television Benny Hill shows, for example, are an oft quoted example and they are oft given as an example for a good reason. Now, Benny Hill was actually a very clever and intelligent man and a gifted comic, but he knew the market he was aiming for an he aimed for it unerringly.  To give another example, the Two Ronnies used a far wider variety of humour and was often far more clever than Benny Hill’s ITV shows. But Ronnie Barker – as clever, intelligent and witty as Benny, as good a comic as Benny and a great actor to boot, was very fond of this seaside postcard humour, and had a huge personal collection of seaside postcards. And there are times in Two Ronnies shows where you can clearly see this influence.

I’m struggling to bring this post to any kind of conclusion. So I’ll bring it back to the whole question of seaside souvenirs. 10 years ago, when my daughter Jenn started her career as a travel agent, I rediscovered my love of travel, and in 10 years I’ve been all over Europe and as far as New York City. Wherever I go I try to buy a souvenir cloth patch for my collection, these having been very much one of the tourist souvenirs of choice from when I was growing up, and taking up a lot less space than snow globes. I’ve been places where you just can’t get them. But fridge magnets! They are like stinking fish now! And I just can’t help wondering why that is, and how they have grown so popular to the detriment of other kinds of tourist tat. Answers on a postcard, please. (But preferably, not a saucy, Donald McGill one.)