'KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON', PROPAGANDA TO SURVIVE

The Stones arrive to the Great Cumberland Hotel

Today, The Stones and The Grandma have stayed at hotel talking about the future. The whole world but Europe in particular is under the effects of a terrible pandemia and The Stones must change their agenda.

When you are in front of a difficult situation, one of the most important things is communication.

Communication must be clear, short and honest. It is very important that population trusts on its goverments but to do this, these governments must be competent and put the security of their citizens over all other priorities.

When The Stones arrived to London, The Grandma chose the Great Cumberland Hotel to stay there. It was not a casual decision. This hotel has been witness of the most important events that London, England, and the United Kingdom have lived in their recent history, especially during the WWII when Winston Churchill chose this place to manage the resistance against the nazi invasion.

As The Grandma has explained before, communication is something essencial during a crisis and because of this, The Grandma wants to talk about the history of a famous popular motto and imperative Keep Calm And Carry On, the motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for World War II.

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It takes its name from the Duke of Cumberland, son of George II 1721-1765, a public house which stood on the site from as early as 1747 until it was demolished at the turn of the twentieth century. The old Roman way from the west of England to London ‚ -the Oxford Road of which Oxford street is a part‚- met the equally ancient Watling Street, now the Edgware Road, near the site of the present Cumberland Hotel. Tyburn Brook, which flowed nearby, was in a district known as Tynburnia which was almost as aristocratic as Mayfair and Belgravia. Alongside the brook were the Tyburn Trees and for generations the trees were used for execution. Later a permanent fixture of gallows was erected where for centuries executions continued to be performed, the last taking place in 1783.

The rural nature of the district began to change rapidly in the early eighteenth century. Cumberland Place had been built in the mid 1700, probably after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, followed by Old Quebec Street in 1770 and Bryanston Street in about 1780. Aristocratic families moved to the district and the Duke of York took a house in Portman Square in 1805. Lord Camelford lived in house on the north side of Oxford Street where it remained until 1913 when it was demolished to make way for a cinema and a block of flats.

In 1901 the island site bounded by Oxford Street, Old Quebec Street, Bryanston Street and Great Cumberland Place, was progressively acquired by Lyons for the erection of the Cumberland Hotel. This was well before the Stand Hotel had been built in 1909. Apart from the complicated land deals, the Cumberland project was formidable.

Keep Calm and Carry On

The excavations alone entailed the removal of over 100,000 cubic yards of material during which historical relics from all periods were unearthed. The architect in charge was F. J. Wills with Oliver Bernard responsible for the public rooms. All building work was carried out by Lyons own staff.

The Cumberland Hotel featured all the latest developments of comfort. It was sound-proofed, double glazed, air conditioned and all 900 bed-rooms had their own en-suite. All air entering the hotel was filtered including the supply to the kitchen areas. Here the exhaust was treated to eradicate cooking smells. The reading lamps in the bedroom were of a triangular design with close fitting metal doors on two faces. In a twin-bedded room therefore, the occupants could adjust the lantern doors to prevent light from affecting the other sleeper if he/she chose to sleep rather than read. With both sides of the lantern closed a pin-head of amber light provided the perfect night-light.

The structure consisted of thirteen floors, ten of them above ground and three below ground. The public rooms, restaurants, banqueting hall, grill room and centre court were located centrally. Part of the hotel backbone was an enormous 100-ton girder which required the world's largest lorry to convey it. Fifteen thousand tons of steel-work was used in the hotel's construction.

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Four hundred thousand square feet of Empire grown timber was used in the making of bedroom furniture. The 50,000 yards of sheets cost £25,000 and the carpets £18,000. Two thousand staff were employed at the hotel and a specially built annex provided accommodation for 300 girls who slept in single or double rooms. There was one bath to every four girls and they ate in their own restaurant on the ground floor of the annex.

The Hotel was visited by the young King George V and Queen Mary two days before the public opening on 12 December 1933 in time for the Christmas trade. The first hotel manager was Proserpi Amilcare who remained in charge until his death in 1947 aged only 59. At fifteen he had started work as a waiter in Cannes and two years later came to England working in the Midland Hotel, Manchester. From 1907 until 1914 he worked in Baden-Baden, Berlin, Vichy, Monte Carlo, and the Savoy Hotel London.

In 1914 he joined the company at the Popular Cafe and in 1918 became superintendent-in-charge of the Louis Room at the Regent Palace Hotel. In 1924 Amilcare took charge of Lyons' famous Grill Room at the Wembley Exhibition. Then after a short stay as manager of the Trocadero Restaurant he was appointed manager of the Regent Palace Hotel in 1926 where he remained until the Cumberland Hotel opened in 1933. One of his last public appearances, despite his illness, was when he attended the unveiling of Lyons' Second World War memorial at Sudbury, Middlesex, on 9 November 1947. He was laid to rest, in the presence of several Lyons directors and senior managers, in West Norwood Cemetery on, 17 December 1947.

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Keep Calm and Carry On is a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for World War II.

The poster was intended to raise the morale of the British public, threatened with widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities. Although 2.45 million copies were printed, and although the Blitz did in fact take place, the poster was only rarely publicly displayed and was little known until a copy was rediscovered in 2000 at Barter Books, a bookshop in Alnwick.

It has since been re-issued by a number of private companies, and has been used as the decorative theme for a range of products.

Evocative of the Victorian belief in British stoicism -the stiff upper lip, self-discipline, fortitude, and remaining calm in adversity- the poster has become recognised around the world. It was thought that only two original copies survived until a collection of approximately 15 was brought in to the Antiques Roadshow in 2012 by the daughter of an ex-Royal Observer Corps member. A few further examples have come to light since.

Winston Churchill

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster was designed by the Ministry of Information during the period of 27 June to 6 July 1939. It was produced as part of a series of three Home Publicity posters, the others read Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory and Freedom Is in Peril / Defend It With All Your Might.

Each poster showed the slogan under a representation of a Tudor Crown, a symbol of the state. They were intended to be distributed to strengthen morale in the event of a wartime disaster, such as mass bombing of major cities using high explosives and poison gas, which was widely expected within hours of an outbreak of war.

A career civil servant named A. P. Waterfield came up with Your Courage as a rallying war-cry that will bring out the best in everyone of us and put us in an offensive mood at once. Others involved in the planning of the early posters included: John Hilton, Professor of Industrial Relations at Cambridge University, responsible overall as Director of Home Publicity; William Surrey Dane, managing director at Odhams Press; Gervas Huxley, former head of publicity for the Empire Marketing Board; William Codling, controller of HMSO; Harold Nicolson, MP; W. G. V. Vaughan, who became Director of the General Production Division (GPD); H. V. Rhodes, who later wrote an occasional paper on setting up a new government department; Ivison Macadam; Mr Cruthley; and Mr Francis. Ernest Wallcousins was the artist tasked with creating the poster designs.

Detailed planning for the posters had started in April 1939 and the eventual designs were prepared after meetings between officials from the Ministry of Information and HM Treasury on 26 June 1939 and between officials from the Ministry of Information and HMSO on 27 June 1939.

Roughs of the poster were completed on 6 July 1939, and the final designs were agreed by the Home Secretary Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood on 4 August 1939. Printing began on 23 August 1939, the day that Nazi Germany and the USSR signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and the posters were ready to be placed up within 24 hours of the outbreak of war.

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The posters were produced in 11 different sizes, ranging from 38×25 cm up to large 48-sheet versions. The background colour was either red or blue. The lettering was probably hand-drawn by Wallcousins: it is similar, but not identical, to humanist sans-serif typefaces such as Gill Sans and Johnston.

Almost 2,500,000 copies of Keep Calm and Carry On were printed between 23 August and 3 September 1939 but the poster was not sanctioned for immediate public display.

It was instead decided that copies should remain in cold storage for use after serious air raids, with resources transferred to Your Courage and Freedom is in Peril.

Copies of Keep Calm and Carry On were retained until April 1940, but stocks were then pulped as part of the wider Paper Salvage campaign. A very few copies do appear to have been displayed, but such instances were rare and unauthorised: an October 1940 edition of the Yorkshire Post reports the poster hung in a shop in Leeds; while a photograph discovered in 2016 shows it on the wall of a government laboratory in Bedfordshire.

The remainder of the Ministry of Information publicity campaign was cancelled in October 1939 following criticism of its cost and impact. Many people claimed not to have seen the posters; while those who did see them regarded them as patronising and divisive. Design historian Susannah Walker regards the campaign as a resounding failure and reflective of a misjudgement by upper-class civil servants of the mood of the people.

In late May and early June 1941, 14,000,000 copies of a leaflet entitled Beating the Invader were distributed with a message from Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The leaflet begins If invasion comes... and exhorts the populace to Stand Firm and Carry On.

The two phrases do not appear in one sentence, as they applied to different segments of the population depending on their circumstances, with those civilians finding themselves in areas of fighting ordered to stand firm and those not in areas of fighting ordered to carry on. Each mandate is identified as a great order and duty should invasion come. The leaflet then lists 14 questions and answers on practical measures to be taken.

In 2000, Stuart Manley, co-owner with his wife Mary of Barter Books Ltd. in Alnwick, Northumberland, was sorting through a box of second-hand books bought at auction when he uncovered one of the original Keep Calm and Carry On posters. The couple framed it and hung it up by the cash register; it attracted so much interest that Manley began to produce and sell copies.

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The truth is incontrovertible.

Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it,

but in the end, there it is.

Winston Churchill