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In what seems a rather unusual
move for a successful company, Martins Bank Magazine spends the first two
years of its life carrying other people’s advertising. The idea might be simple, to sell products
to the Bank’s staff, all of whom are in what was is after all, a respectable
profession. So, who exactly formed the
queue of eager businesses, keen to exploit the modest earnings of our newly
returned soldiers and airmen, and the army of women who fought alongside them
in various roles? It would appear that
what preyed most on the minds of the Bank’s staff at this time was being able
to afford both good work clothes, and
one of the many courses on offer to help coach them through their Bankers’
Examinations. Spurious advertisements
also crop up offering holidays in the Lake District and Scarborough, there is
the offer of public speaking lessons, and perhaps most curious of all, there
is a determined campaign by the makers of OXO to encourage staff to imbibe
cups full of their nourishing beefy product at every opportunity. A certain sartorial elegance… |
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This is
all very gentle stuff, and so very much of its time. With clothing and food still rationed, staff
need to know they will get the best value for their coupons. The OXO ads also seem to carry an air of
patriotic duty, encouraging for example, the growing of vegetables with which
the cubes of gravy can then be served.
The
adverts are suddenly withdrawn from the magazine after the Autumn 1948
edition of the Magazine, and for the following few issues, the inside covers
are sadly bare, before the arrival late in 1949 of the “Forthcoming Events”
column. The
mighty wheels of commerce never stop, as the seemingly unassailable fashion
business of Keith Bradbury (The Tailor with a Plan) is swallowed up by Harry
Hall (the man with the BETTER plan). A final crushing blow to the previous
business is dealt by the phrase “even better service than before”… |
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I’m yearning to learn… …and to write… …and to speak… …but can it REALLY be done for just shillings
each week? |
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Just what IS the secret of success?
Well, subscribing to any or all of these correspondence colleges might give
you the edge, but may also leave you out of pocket. The Bank will reward
those who study for the examinations of the Institute of Bankers, but
strictly on a basis of payment by results. Interestingly, the Rapid
Results College is the most trusted and well used of all these schemes among
what are referred to as “BankMEN”… |
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It
remained one of the most popular ways of studying for the Institute of
Bankers’ Examinations well into the 1990s. Plenty of opportunity then, to
spend those dark winter evenings buried in a pile of text books, admist what
appears to be outright war between two major colleges - both of whom are
trying their best to catch your eye, AND empty your wallet… |
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Let’s get
away from it all… “Something different! An hotel
with an unusual and distinctive atmosphere – near everything that matters,
and with a fully inclusive tariff” How
marvellous! Scarborough’s Fairview Hotel seems to have it all, and lovely to
see the use of “an hotel” to give the ad that extra je ne sais
quoi… Spoilt for choice, our staff is
tempted by a late mountain fox hunting break in Kewsick, which by summer
becomes known as Keswick ON DERWENTWATER, to remind us
all of the endless fun to be had in the waters of the Lake District. Swim too far, and who knows, you
might just pop out of someone’s bath tap in Liverpool… |
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On the gravy train… |
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It’s the ideal drink for the sophisticated
Bank Clerk about town, who needs something to take his mind off studying,
learning how to write for money, speak in public, or take a British holiday.
Come to think of it, perhaps this is where the Banking downfall of the
twenty-first century finds its roots. Could it be that a life aboard
the “gravy train” is the road to ruin that leads the innocent “pipe and
slippers” banker into the murky worlds of insider trading, mis-selling of
products and manipulation of interest rates?
My, it’s powerful stuff,
that gravy… |
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OXO® IS A REGISTERED
TRADE MARK OF PREMIER FOODS UK LTD |
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