On-board children's tea party menu card on the Orient Line S.S. Oronsay, 'Orlando Sails to the Arctic Regions'; Tuesday 27 October 1953; Kathleen Hale.

Printed dinner menu for the Orient line S.S. 'Oronsay', dated Monday, 26th October, 1953. The card is folded once vertically. On the front is a printed image, from an illustration signed K. Hale, depicting children's fictional character Orlando the Marmalade cat.

Orlando, a ginger cat, and his wife and three kittens are docked in their funnel ship called 'The Saucy Puss'. The landscape is icy and the family ice skate in the company of some penguins. The family are wearing pink ice-skates. The two girl kittens wear blue and have hand muffs, wife Grace wears a brown fur coat over her blue apron, and boy kitten wears black trousers and an orange top. One of the penguins, dancing with Orlando wears a blue and purple feather boa. The ship has red hull. The sea at the front is green and the sky is dark blue at the horizon. The image also features a cow wrapped in a purple quilt and munching on a hay stack and above the hay stack is a white hen sitting in a nest below a parasol which iced over. The hen sits on a hot water bottle and is wrapped in a tea cosy. The title 'Orlando Sails to the Arctic Regions (Chapter 3)' is hand-written into the original illustration at the bottom.

The text on the back of the menu card, printed inside a box with blue stars at the inside border, is in black in serif font, mainly in italics, and describes Orlando and the characters in the image and their activities: Orlando, his wife Grace, the kittens (Blanche, Tinkle and Pansy), Violet the Cow and Elsie the Hen. Below the box in a smaller font, also in black italics, is text mentioning that this is one of a series of six drawings on the same theme by the same artist; the V&A has one of the others, Orlando Goes to Sea, E.353-2005.

Inside, the dinner menu is printed on the right half in a black sans-serif font with occasional italics, centered.

Given by Pamela Griffiths

Gift of Mrs. Pamela Griffiths, whose late husband collected them while a passenger on board.

Reason For Production: Commission

This menu card was made for a voyage on board the Orient Line cruise ship "Oronsay" in 1953. Illustrated menus such as this were printed in advance on land with the inside (menu part) left blank, to be printed on board ship. Passengers often kept them as souvenirs. The menus reflect the luxury of cruise liner travel during its heyday. "Oronsay" was a new liner, making her maiden voyage in 1951.

Orlando, The Marmalade Cat was a classic children's book character created by Kathleen Hale (1898-2000) in the 1940s and 1950s. He featured in 18 stories published between 1938 and 1972 and even in a ballet shown at the Festival of Britain in 1951. Known for their humour and their lithographed illustrations, the books earned Hale an OBE in 1976

E.354-2005