Persuading us to Buy ! - Sepia Saturday

 A vintage advertisement of a young girl enjoying Mackintosh toffees   is this week's prompt image from Sepia Saturday - cue for me to look at different  ways shops encourage us to buy their products, from vintage ads to imaginative signs.

 Enjoying the good things in life: 

 

 

           

Wall sign outside a pub in Austria 

If you over indulge you may need these:

 

 

 Or take a breath of fresh air at  the seaside  at my birthplace of Blackpool, in north west England.

Or take a ride - and ignore the housework. 

 

 Or you could go shopping - and get ideas to brighten up our beleaguered High Streets. 

  

Modern signs in my home village of Earlstoin the Scottish    Borders.

                                  

 

 Two shops on the Island of Mull off the west coast of Scotland, where Highland Cattle roam freely  and are a popular sight to see. 

 

A bookshop sign on the Iona reflects the Celtic  history of  this tiny island,  off the southwest coast of Mull in the Inner Hebrides.   It is only  1.5 miles wide by 3 miles long, with a population of around 120 permanent residents, but everyone talks about  the magical nature of this  seat of Scottish Christianity where St. Columba founded his Abbey in 563AD. Later it became a place of pilgrimage and learning,   and over 40 of Scotland's early  kings were buried there. 

Below  an array of shop signs in Austria  - optician, travel bureau and hatter. 

 

 

 

And after all that shopping, enjoy a snack or a meal. 

 

Not forgetting once a pleasure but now frowned upon  

 

And finally a sign with a family connections. 

  

The billboard proclaims "Grey's Cigarettes as "just honest to goodness tobacco."  It was painted by my father-in-law John Robert Donaldson,  directly onto the board, because of a shortage of paper. immediately after the war.    Standing alongside  is  his son Ian  who followed  him into his signwriting and decorating  business. 

Tobacco was first introduced into Europe in the late 16th century by Jean Nicot (hence the word nicotine).  At first, it was used  mainly for pipe-smoking, chewing, and snuff. Cigars became popular in the the early 1800s and by  the early 20th century,cigarettes were widely smoked.  In the two world wars, cigarettes were regarded as an essential gift to send to soldiers and prisoners of war in their "comfort" parcels.

But by the late 1940's and 1950's there was increasing scientific evidence that smoking caused significant health risks.  In the UK,  Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) was established in January 1971 by the Royal College of Physicians.  Campaigns eventually led to the banning of point-of-sale advertising, banning of cigarette vending machines, banning in public places such as restaurants, pubs, theatres, buses etcand the introduction of plain packaging with health warnings.

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 Sources

• My own photograph collection with many of the vintage  advertisments  taken at  the Beamish Open Air Museum in north east England where,  on a 300 acre  estate,  it recreates life from around 1880 to the  1950s.
  
  
• Pixabay which offers royalty free images. 
  

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