By the time that the Blitz arrived in 1940, the notion of ‘The People’s War’ was popular, and it was clear that people wanted to be told what to do, rather than needed to be told to keep their chins up. It was distributed regionally in November 1939, but no instructions to display were ever given. ‘Keep Calm’, was described as the ‘main poster’ (65%) in the series, but it was to be reserved ‘for the crash of the first air bombardment’. ‘Keep calm and carry on’, remained unknown for decades, because the other ‘red posters’, attracted a lot of negative attention, especially from the press, fearful of potential censorship from the Ministry of Information (the issuing body). The posters, developed by civil servants, designed by Ernest Wallcousins, and signed off by Sir Samuel Hoare (Home Secretary) were still rolling off the printing presses as war was declared. ‘Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory’ (23% of the 3.6 million print run), and ‘Freedom is in peril defend it with all your might (12%). I first mentioned the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster in my undergraduate dissertation in 1997, and again in my PhD thesis in 2004, really as a footnote in discussions about two other posters that were designed for the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Many, however, don’t know the true story behind this poster, and I’ve been seeking to rectify that in my new book Keep Calm and Carry On: The Truth Behind the Poster (Imperial War Museum, 2017).
This poster was a bright pillar-box red, headed with a crown, and with the words ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ in a bold typeface! You may be familiar with it, as it, and it’s variations, appears in every tourist shop, and has appeared in the headlines at every time of crisis since the 2009 economic crisis when the slogan went global! “It works as a personal mantra now.”įor the story of this most improbable of 21st century icons, watch the three-minute film above, which was made by Temujin Doran in collaboration with the design and production studio Nation.In 2001 Stuart Manley of Barter Books in Northumberland discovered a poster in the bottom of a box of auction books, liked it, and decided to frame it and display it in the shop. “It’s very good, almost zen,” psychologist Lesley Prince told the BBC. Since that time, tens of thousands of the posters have been sold, and the slogan has found its way onto t-shirts and coffee mugs and has been the inspiration of countless parodies like “Keep Calm and Party On” and “Freak Out and Run Like Hell.” Removed from its original context, the wartime slogan has an uncanny resonance in today’s world. Then in 2005 a national newspaper supplement recommended the poster as a Christmas gift and, as Stuart Manley put it, “all hell broke loose.” Before long, customers were offering to buy it, so the Manleys decided to print some copies. The Manleys decided to frame the poster and hang it in the shop. It turned out that the poster was one of millions that were printed on the eve of World War II but never distributed.
It said: “Keep Calm and Carry On.” As the BBC’s Stuart Hughes later put it, “the simple five-word message is the very model of British restraint and stiff upper lip.” He took the paper out, opened it and showed it to his wife and business partner, Mary Manley. One day in 2000, the store’s co-owner, Stuart Manley, was searching through a dusty box of books that were bought at auction, when he found a folded-up piece of paper at the bottom. During the winter months, customers sit and read by a roaring fire in the old waiting room.
The New Statesman called it “The British Library of secondhand books.” A model railway winds along a track laid out across row upon row of bookshelves in what was once the departure hall. In an old Victorian railway station in the picturesque village of Alnwick, Northumberland, just South of the Scottish border, is a one-of-a-kind bookstore called Barter Books.
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