Portraits of Members of the London Handlebar Club, 1947

“The object of the Handlebar Club was, and still is, to bring together mustache wearers (beards being strictly prohibited) socially for sport and general conviviality.”

We take off our hat to – the members of the Handlebar Club, for their determined co-operative self-denial in the use of the razor.

The first public announcement of the Handlebar Club was on April 17, 1947, when an item appeared in the News Revue under the heading “The Smashers’ Club”. It was based on a press release produced by Windmill Theatre comedian Jimmy Edwards. Its flowing mustachio appeal is directed primarily to serving and ex-members of the Forces, particularly those of the Prune school. Readers will remember his loose brushlike appendage.

The London Handlebar Club, which in the 1940s offered a safe space for those who sported exuberant whiskers. At meetings, members shared tips for preventing an upsweep (clip-on weights!) and dealing with a mustache misshapen from sleep (sleep on your back, not your face). One particularly troublesome ailment was the “Boozer’s Droop,” a side effect of “too much immersion in alcohol during the mustache’s early development.” The cure? “Stop drinking. Short of that, shave.”

Many of the founder members are former R.A.F. men; including famous personalities. The President is Raymond Glendenning, B.B.C. commentator. Bill Hooper created the wartime character Percy Prune. Other members include – Captain Hare; Allan Edwards; Raymond Glendenning; George Hoffman; Baron de Bere; Anita d’Ray; Bill Hooper; H. Lestocq; Jimmy Edwards; Russ Allen; and Founder Frank Muir, of the B.B.C.

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A Vintage Photo Series of the Southampton Guildhall Dance in 1962

Southampton Guildhall is a multipurpose venue which forms the East Wing of the Civic Centre in Southampton, England. There are three venues in the Guildhall catering for various event formats: the Guildhall itself, the Solent Suite and a lecture theatre.

The Guildhall, which was designed with a large portico with six Ionic order columns with pediment above, was intended to complement the rest of the Civic Suite and was opened by the Earl of Derby on 13 February 1937. Internally, the principal room was the main hall which was 143 feet (44 m) long, 71 feet (22 m) wide and 38 feet (12 m) high.

The Guildhall was used to accommodate French troops, who had escaped from France in June 1940 during the Dunkirk evacuation. During the Southampton Blitz in November 1940, the Guildhall was damaged by a bomb that fell at the rear of the hall causing damage to the rooms behind the stage and killing one person. Another bomb penetrated into the basement below the stage before exploding. The building was also hit by numerous incendiary devices. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, visited the guildhall during a tour of the city in January 1941 and it was used for high-level military conferences in spring and summer 1944 in anticipation of the Normandy landings which were coordinated from Southwick House.

A new sprung floor was installed in the main hall in 1955 enabling the guildhall to become a major music venue. Leading performers at the guildhall included rock bands, The Rolling Stones, in March 1964, and The Who, in October 1971, and singer-songwriter, David Bowie, in March 1972 during his Ziggy Stardust Tour.

Here below is a vintage photo series from foundin_a_attic that shows a dance competition at Southampton Guildhall in 1962.

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Goldie Hawn Riding a Moulton Small-Wheel Bike in London, 1970

Goldie Hawn sailing around Shepperton Studios outside of London on her Moulton small-wheel bike. It’s 1970 and she’s in the UK starring opposite Peter Sellers in Columbia Pictures’ romantic comedy There’s a Girl in My Soup.

There’s a Girl in My Soup is a 1970 British romantic comedy film based on the long running stage play, directed by Roy Boulting and starring Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn. The film is based on the stage comedy There’s a Girl in My Soup, written by Terence Frisby It ran for six and a half years in the West End, from 1966 to 1973, including three years at the Globe Theatre (now The Gielgud), breaking records to become London’s longest-running comedy. This record was later broken by No Sex Please, We’re British and then Run for Your Wife.

Film rights were bought in 1967 by Columbia and Nat Cohen. Eventually Mike Frankovich became producer and the Boultings directed. Goldie Hawn signed in January 1969. A novelization of the film, written by Raymond Hitchcock, was published in 1971.

(via Rides a Bike)

A Great Dane Holds the Lead of Its Smaller Companion as They Wait at the Side of a Road, 1954

A Great Dane holds the lead of its smaller companion as they wait at the side of a road during a traffic training class run by dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse in the UK, 1954.

Barbara Woodhouse (1910–1988) was an Irish-born British dog trainer, author, horse trainer and television personality. Her 1980 television series Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way made her a household name in the United Kingdom. Among her catch phrases were “walkies” and “sit!”.

Woodhouse’s autobiographical books included Talking to Animals and No Bad Dogs, she firmly believed there were “no bad dogs”, just bad owners and defined it to mean dogs without genetic problems:

“Some people get dogs they don’t deserve; hereditary faults play havoc with some dogs, and the poor owner can do nothing. I think if the faults are too great, it is kinder to put a bad dog to sleep after training and possibly veterinary advice have failed.”

40 Sombre Black-and-White Photos of Streets of Manchester in 1963

Manchester went through enormous and difficult changes in the sixties. After WWII cities such as Manchester lost power over local gas and electrical supply – thus much of their income. The city also had to struggle with high unemployment rates, as heavy industry, cotton processing and trading all suffered a severe downturn. Between 1961 and 1983, Manchester lost 150,000 jobs in manufacturing. The city’s population also suffered a decline during that time. In 1961, Manchester’s population was 662,000, and by 1971 it was 544,000.

The city also saw the rise of new buildings, skyscrapers and housing schemes in this decade. Few aesthetically memorable buildings were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s, but some grew into landmarks. In 1962, the 118-metre tall CIS Tower became the tallest building in the United Kingdom, and three years later came the opening of the Piccadilly Plaza, another skyscraper. Overcrowded and shabby housing was also demolished to make way for high-rise blocks of flats.

Take a look back at the city in 1963 through these 40 sober vintage black-and-white photographs from part of the Town Hall Photographer’s Collection at Manchester City Council’s Central Library archives:

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Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland and Her Daughter at the First Meeting of the Ladies Automobile Club, 1903

The Ladies’ Automobile Club was Great Britain’s first dedicated motor club for women. It was not exclusively a motorsport association, but it was one of the first bodies to organize motor races for women in the UK.

Talk of a women’s motor club began in 1899. Newspapers described the actress Lily Langtry as one of its first members, and Viscountess Haberton as the founder. Little else was heard for three or four years. In 1903, it starts to be mentioned in the papers again, with Lady Cecil Scott Montagu was its first acknowledged leader.

Between 1903 and 1904, the original club seems to have collapsed. Contemporary reports claim this was due to disagreements about membership criteria. Only ladies in “society” were intended to join. Most of the early members were from the titled classes.

Millicent Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland, with her daughter Lady Rosemary Millicent Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, at the first meeting of the Ladies Automobile Club, 1903.

Millicent, the Duchess of Sutherland, became its first president in 1904. She oversaw the first Club event in June, a meeting and group drive from Carlton Terrace in central London to the Ranelagh Club in Barnes, via Pall Mall and the park. Fifty-six cars were involved. Many of the ladies drove themselves, although some relied on their chauffeurs. This fact was did not go un-noticed by observers. Among the observers on the day was Queen Alexandra, who watched the parade from the window at Buckingham Palace.

The club’s first annual general meeting was the following month. Rooms were acquired at Claridges Hotel for the use of members, as well as a garage.

Most of the LAC’s activities were social in nature. Typically, one member would hold a meeting at her house. This was followed by a drive out, often to the Ranelagh or Hurlingham clubs, for tea. In 1904, an engineer was booked to give a series of talks on the workings of the internal combustion engine. From time to time, other talks were given, sometimes by members themselves, on aspects of motoring, or their own four-wheeled adventures.

(via Speedqueens)

Amazing Photos of Porters at Covent Garden Market in London Carrying Tower of Baskets on Their Heads

Covent Garden Market had its beginning in 1835 when a patent was issued to hold a “public fair or mart” in the area of Richmond, Dundas and King Streets. In 1845, the Market found a permanent home when city business owners donated land near Richmond, Dundas and King Streets.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were the days the farmers arrived to sell their wares. The inside main floor was strewn with sawdust and the shoppers could choose meat from many different butchers. Outside, buyers and sellers mingled, bargaining over wares ranging from boxes of trinkets and wild raspberries to kitten litters.

Until well after World War I, the Market was, without question, the business and cultural heart of the city. But the advent of automobile began to take its toll on the timehonored tradition of visiting the Market. In 1955, a group of nine businessmen formed the Covent Garden Building Inc. to replace the old Market building and in 1958 the new building was finished. It contained four levels of parking along with an area on the main floor for the traditional Market.

These vintage photographs show some of the hundreds of market porters who transported the many and varied forms of garden produce from the market buildings to their end buyers, in a basket (or more often than not, baskets) balanced on their heads.

A market trader with a stack of baskets, 1915.

A Covent Garden market porter, 1922.

Market trader Alfred Bailey practicing with 15 baskets at Covent Garden, London, for the basket-carrying championships, 1925.

A Covent Garden carman crossing a temporary Waterloo Bridge, London, 1925.

A porter at Covent Garden Market, London, carries twenty baskets on his head, 1925.

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November Effigies, London, ca. 1870s

The accompanying photograph is that of a nondescript guy, somewhat clumsily built up by a costermonger who lives in the south-east of London.

(From Street Life in London, 1877, by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith)

This meaningless monstrosity, together with the absurd appearance of the man in woman’s clothes, amuses some persons, and the conductor of such an exhibition can hope to realize about thirty shillings the first day, a pound on the 6th of November, and ten or fifteen shillings on the 7th.

With this money the cost of getting up the guy must be refunded, and a shilling or eighteen pence per day given to the boys who help to swell the cortege. The boys’ share of the proceeds is consequently somewhat out of proportion with the time and cheers they devote to promoting the success of the enterprise; but it is argued that they enjoy the fun, while to their seniors the venture is attended with some risk, and is only considered as another form of labour for daily bread.

Vintage Photos Captured Britain’s Vanished Industrial Heartlands

Everyday life in Wallsend and South Shields was provided with a backdrop of huge ships and industrial cranes, which immensely fascinated Chris Killip. The ship Tyne Pride, which he photographed in 1975, was the biggest ship ever built on the river, but also one of the last. “Even then I had a sense that all this was not going to last,” he says, “though I had no idea how soon it would all be gone.”

In an early photograph, Tyne Pride looms over children playing in the street. Only two years later, another photograph shows the same street demolished, dramatic evidence of the industry’s decline. Other photographs capture the energy of the mid-1970s, with ships under construction and shipyard workers streaming out of the gates at the end of shift.

Killip’s photographs document the lives of working people and their resilience of spirit while at the same time recording the steady decline of industrial Britain. Initially coming to the North East in 1975 as the Northern Arts Photography Fellow, Chris Killip lived and worked on Tyneside until 1991 when he was recruited by Harvard University to teach photography in its Visual Studies Program. In honour of the shipyard workers of Tyneside, he gave this set of exhibition prints to the Laing.

Wallsend Housing Looking East, 1975

Wallsend, 1970s

Shipyard workers looking at the Everett F Wells, Wallsend, 1977

Tyne Pride from a back lane, Wallsend, 1975

Tyne Pride at the end of the street, Wallsend, 1970s

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Photoshoot of Debbie Harry in “Andy Warhol’s Bad” T-Shirt, 1979

From a photo shoot in 1979 at the Old Street Studio in London, frontwoman for the iconic New Wave band Blondie Debbie Harry wore this t-shirt, as well as performing on stage with it too. Andy Warhol’s Bad was a 1977 comedy film; the last he produced before his death 10 years later.

Debbie Harry has always been known for her effortless thrift-store style t-shirts, and this “Andy Warhol’s Bad” tee is easily one of her most iconic. Although Harry and Warhol’s connection to each other extended far beyond the swirling letters of t-shirt.

“I bumped into Andy on Broadway and 13th street and said hello and we chatted about everything. I suppose this is how we met and our friendship grew from there,” Harry has since said. “He was very softly spoken and used a funny Polaroid portrait camera. Andy was part of our legacy and our future.” An early pop art image of Harry by Warhol from 1980 has recently been sold for a cool $5.9 million.

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Notched Wedding Ring Worn to Denote Divorce

In the 1920s, many women in England, who have been divorced from their husbands, continue to wear the wedding ring, but have a fracture cut in it by a jeweler, as an indication of that fact. Those who have parted from more than one husband have notches to indicate the number made in the edge of the gold band, it is said.

Stunning Vintage Black-and-White Photos of Edwin Smith

Edwin Smith (born Edwin George Herbert Smith) was an English photographer best known for his distinctive vignettes of English gardens, landscapes, and architecture. In 1935 he became a freelance photographer, working as a fashion photographer for Vogue for a short time. However, Smith concentrated his artistic efforts on subjects such as the mining community of Ashington in Northumberland, the docks of Newcastle, and circuses and fairgrounds around London. 

In 1954, Smith married artist and writer Olive Cook, whom he authored or contributed to numerous books during his lifetime. A tireless promoter of Smith’s work, Cook left her husband’s archive of 60,000 negatives to the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Robert Elwall Photographs Collection in 2002.

Take a look at Smith’s stunning photography through these 28 gorgeous black-and-white pictures below: 

Kentish Town station, London

Gateshead

Herring girls gutting fish on the quayside, North Shields

35 Hallam’s Lane, Chilwell near Nottingham

Church Farm Approved School, East Barnet, London

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The Old Clothes of St. Giles in Seven Dials, London, ca. 1877

This vintage photograph represents a second-hand clothes shop in a narrow thoroughfare of St. Giles, appropriately called Lumber Court, where several similar tradesmen are grouped together, all dealing in old clothes and furniture of a most varied and dilapidated description. It is here that the poorest inhabitants of a district, renowned for its poverty, both buy and sell their clothes.

Photographer John Thomson (1837–1921) used the ‘Woodburytype’ process patented in 1864 for the images in Street Life in London, including this photograph. This was a type of photomechanical reproduction using pigmented gelatin, usually of a rich purple-brown color. The process was complicated but remained popular until about 1900 because of the high quality and permanence of the finished images.

The people in the pictures were arranged or posed by Thomson to form interesting compositions. However, the results were often naturalistic because the subjects and surroundings were always authentic.

St Giles is an area in the West End of London. It gets its name from the parish church of St Giles in the Fields. The combined parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury (which was carved out of the former) were administered jointly for many centuries; leading to the conflation of the two, with much or all of St Giles usually taken to be a part of Bloomsbury. Points of interest include the church of St Giles in the Fields, Seven Dials, the Phoenix Garden and St Giles Circus. The area falls within the London Borough of Camden local authority area.

Brilliant Vintage Photos of The Rolling Stones’ Free Concert at Hyde Park in 1969

On July 5, 1969, The Rolling Stones played at a free concert in London’s Hyde Park. They decided to go ahead with the show as a tribute to Brian Jones, as two days ago he was found drowned in the swimming pool at his home. Jagger began by reading an excerpt from Shelley's poem “Adonaïs”, an elegy written on the death of his friend John Keats. They released thousands of butterflies in memory of Jones before opening their set with “I'm Yours and I'm Hers”, a Johnny Winter number. The concert, their first with new guitarist Mick Taylor, was performed in front of an estimated 250,000 fans.

“Most fantastic of all was that this was a free concert, an event that seemed to be taking place in a Socialist society in the distant future.” Richard Gott of the Guardian described the audience. “The participants, almost all born since the Second World War, had a classless air, and they were less disciplined, less puritanical than the middle-class protesters of earlier days.

“Today there is no protest, but merely a feeling—perhaps a false one—that a kind of freedom has been achieved in spite of, rather than. Because of, the activities of Wilson, Heath, and company. Anyone who wants to understand the present political malaise in Britain, or who wants to have an inkling of what Britain will be like in 10 years time, should have been in the park on Saturday.”

Take a look at the band and the audience through these 29 brilliant vintage photographs below:

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