"There goes our blinkin' parapet again."
Postcard
1916-1919 (printed), 1916-1919 (published)
1916-1919 (printed), 1916-1919 (published)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
By the early 20th Century greetings postcards had overtaken folder cards in popularity as they were cheaper to post. A ban on Christmas cards to conserve supplies of paper was mooted during the First World War but the idea was abandoned in the interests of maintaining the troops' morale. The cartoons of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather (who had been injured at Ypres) were published in the popular tabloid magazine The Bystander and were enormously popular with the troops for their satirical unromantic view of life in the trenches. In 1916 The Bystander published a collection of the cartoons in a book, Fragments from France, which was hugely successful, selling out in several editions and running to a series of sequels. Many of the cartoons were also published for sale as prints and postcards. "There goes our blinkin' parapet again" is from the first book in the series.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | "There goes our blinkin' parapet again." (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | Letterpress and half tone letterpress on card |
| Brief description | Postcard, letterpress on card, "There goes our blinkin' parapet again.", Bruce Bairnsfather, published by The Bystander, Britain, World War I, 1916-1919. |
| Physical description | Postcard in portrait format. On the front: Bruce Bairnsfather cartoon in monochrome showing his popular character Old Bill and a comrade sheltering in a dugout as a shell blows up the sandbags reinforcing their trench, signed within the image and lettered beneath the image with the caption, "There goes our blinkin' parapet again." and with the publisher's copyright. On the back: postcard template printed in black, handwritten correspondence in black ink, V&A Museum stamp in dark blue ink and numbered in pencil. |
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| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Subjects depicted | |
| Literary references |
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| Summary | By the early 20th Century greetings postcards had overtaken folder cards in popularity as they were cheaper to post. A ban on Christmas cards to conserve supplies of paper was mooted during the First World War but the idea was abandoned in the interests of maintaining the troops' morale. The cartoons of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather (who had been injured at Ypres) were published in the popular tabloid magazine The Bystander and were enormously popular with the troops for their satirical unromantic view of life in the trenches. In 1916 The Bystander published a collection of the cartoons in a book, Fragments from France, which was hugely successful, selling out in several editions and running to a series of sequels. Many of the cartoons were also published for sale as prints and postcards. "There goes our blinkin' parapet again" is from the first book in the series. |
| Other number | B1.4 |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.403-2008 |
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| Record created | December 1, 2010 |
| Record URL |
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