Longwhitekid Becomes an E-Mag

Update, January 2018: Volume 2 is now out, featuring a history of Aulsebrook’s and Eskimo Pies, a treatise on folk artist Jane Brenkley’s work, and the real deal on Pineapple Lumps – as well as other tasty tidbits. If you’re interested in the 4 volume subscription, Just leave a comment (no need to put your email address) and I’ll be in touch with you.

 

 

Hi there,
Some of you may already know who I am, and some of you don’t know me except as the writer here. I’m Darian Zam (yes, it’s my real name, before you ask) and I’m the founder of the Longwhitekid blog, and the History Always Repeats page which is another creation of mine – now with over 8,500 members and growing rapidly by the week.

You’ll probably have noticed that posting stories at this site tapered off around last March, excepting occasional themed posts around special events. So although it is true I have been busier than ever, there was something else afoot as well, which brought about this change.

Since a few people have been really curious what happened, I’ll cover it briefly, but it’s really not that thrilling – well, it wasn’t for me. A reader alerted me to the fact that a business in the U.K. named Print Express was reproducing my stuff. I approached them to sort it out and by ‘sort it out’ I asked them to stop doing it – and requested the net profit they had accrued from illegally taking my work and on-selling it. They very professionally told me I could go >insert< myself. Those were their words. It was particularly enraging because being on the other side of the world with different territorial law there was little I could realistically do about it and thought it was never going to be resolved.

I filed the paperwork for copyright infringement and at the same time notified other businesses and licensees that it was being done to them as well (power in numbers, I reckoned). It took many months before they were finally put out of business – which was probably, in reality pretty quick, actually.

Sadly it’s not an uncommon problem that, when you put your stuff ‘out there’ for people to enjoy, someone is going to take advantage of it.  I’ll just say it was disappointing as well as very frustrating – and the final thing for me in a string of similar issues over a couple of years in which I’ve seen my work taken and used by TV shows and greeting card companies. Basically it’s made me reluctant to post any original material publicly because of the incident.

What was borne of that frustration was an idea. I decided I wanted control back – and that in order to have more control over distribution of my content, I had two choices. I could give up completely or – I could try a subscription based method. So instead of quitting, I kept researching and writing – and started laying out the first edition. Maybe it was an inevitable next step – I’ve always wanted to do a magazine!

So I made the decision that after five years here, it was high time for a change anyway – and I’d start publishing Longwhitekid as an e-journal, four times a year. In order to receive it you can get them individually, or take a year’s subscription at a discount.

Issue one (April-June) will be ready to roll in a couple of weeks. So I thought I’d sound out what kind of enthusiasm there is in yearly subscriptions to figure if there is enough interest to make it a worthwhile project. If you are interested in subscribing, please notify me below and I’ll contact you with more information (comments show an email address, but only to me as administrator).

So this is unfortunately end of an era, being my last post ever. But I really hope you’ll all join me in this exciting new stage.

Best regards,
Darian Zam
Social historian

Sentiment For Sale

 

Foodstuffs Ltd point-of-sale cardboard poster for a Four Square Xmas promotion, probably late 1950s-early 1960s. If you want to read about the history of this iconic brand and huge chain of grocery stores, I wrote about it here. Go for it. 

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Here we are back at the festive season again. I just don’t know what happened to this year; I do know that I’ve only managed to post about six times which is a marked difference from the previous years, understatement. At least a couple of those were substantial.
December the first marked five years of the Longwhitekid blog. I had a special image saved and everything, but even though I definitely had something to say on the occasion – I couldn’t make time to do anything with it.

This is the fourth or fifth annual Yuletide-themed post. Somehow I managed to gather a huge amount of Christmassy (yes, that is a term, because I say so) stuff into my file for this one; I’m not sure why that happened.  However I had a lot to choose from. So, I’ve focussed on the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s this time around -with a palette of red, blue, white and black (mostly). Inevitably, most of the images are commercially related hence the title of this article.

I’ll be back around new year with the regular article of the top fifty most popular images of 2015 as voted by my readers. It will probably be quite different since my membership went up by thousands (in part due to a mention in the NZ Herald) and some things got hundreds of likes. I sort of have an idea what the top image was, but the rest will be just as much as surprise to me as it will be to you. Until then, happy holidays and all that stuff.

A Santa Claus Toby jug by Crown Lynn Potteries Limited, designed by Vic Lawson and manufactured between 1942-1957.  I have no idea how rare this is and if it would fetch the same kinds of prices as their other scarce ones like the Wahine (technically, the latter was mostly made by Titian Studios 1947 – 1970, before CL bought them out). Image courtesy of Portage Ceramics Trust collection at Te Toi Uku Clayworks (aka the Crown Lynn Museum), Auckland portageceramicstrust.org.nz

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An unsigned illustration from the New Zealand  School Journal, part 3, 1957. I’m guessing this is probably the work of Conrad Frieboe, who had a long career working for the Department of Education on various publications from the 1950s through to the 1970s as well as for book publishers and magazines like ‘Stitch’ ( for which he did beautiful work). Image courtesy of the  Doris Chadwick Collection of educational publications,  D233, NZ School Journals Vols 51, 1907-1960 , UoW Archives. 

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Advert from Whittaker’s chocolate Christmas campaign, 2012. Sante does indeed exist, and has for a very long time in Aotearoa. Although the line has almost become a ‘brand’ in its self for this company, it was once considered pretty much generic – and everyone from ‘Hudson’s’ to ‘Beatall’ had a crack at it over time.

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Cover of a Christmas brochure for DIC department stores. This chain, originally named the ‘Drapery and General Importing Company of New Zealand Ltd’, was founded in 1884 by one of the Hallensteins – Bendix (1835-1905). He was also responsible for founding, earlier in 1873, what was to become Hallenstein Brothers – one of the country’s most successful brands historically, and still going today. DIC grew to at least thirteen stores around the country until it was phased out in 1991, after being taken over by rival Arthur Barnett’s. Image courtesy of Owain Morris collection.

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Santa parade of 1958, along Cambridge Terrace, Wellington. This must be the same annual James Smiths Ltd  department stores-sponsored one that travelled the same route, which I wrote about here. Image courtesy of  Wellington City Libraries collection.

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Farmers Trading Company’s famous free bus from Karangahape Road, arriving at the Hobson Street store with Santa in place in his original location. Of course this building is now a boutique hotel,  so these days he is on the front of the Whitcoull’s store in Queen Street, where he’s been placed every season for quite some time now. In recent years his lascivious wink and beckoning finger have been removed because parents are weird about stuff that’s all in their head and nobody else’s. Thanks for making Santa dirty, folks. Image possibly taken in the early 1970s (this looks like one of those old green buses), courtesy of Graham C. Stewart, from the Garth Stewart collection.

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A promotional Christmas cake tin given as gifts to customers of ‘The Maple.’ Presumably this refers to home decorating institution the Maple Furnishing Co Ltd, which was on the north side of Karangahape Road, Auckland near Symonds Street, as well as branches in Onehunga and  Wellington. It had been around since the 1910s, being known for high end furniture – including designer Featherston of the famous and highly collectable chairs. You can see another 1920s picture of the business here. It was purchased by Smith and Brown in about 1970 who had a chain of over twenty stores around the country. It became Smith & Brown & Maple but only lasted until around 1979. I am guessing this tin dates from the early-mid 1960s.  I suspect it may have been done for the business by cake manufacturers Newdick & Co who were also situated close by and are known to have specialized in decorative Xmas tins to market their products. 

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Santa Parade, 1969, High Street,  Dannevirke. Tip-Top’s ‘Moggy Man’ novelty started out as the iconic baby boomer icy treat the ‘TT2’ in the fifties – and lasted into the 1970s. I’ve previously written about the historical development of the product here. Image courtesy of the Dannevirke Museum collection.

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Glass Christmas tree decorations dating from the 1950s to 1960s. We used to have these on our family tree and some went back to my great-grandparents who had owned them before WWII. Every year the hoard would shrink as inevitably one would get broken somehow; the wind, or the cat – or a clumsy child. Image courtesy of Gertrude Snyder, Vintage Treasure In Martinborough at facebook.com/vintagetreasurenz  or vintagetreasurenz.com

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A family around the Christmas tree, from the Oamaru Mail, 1965. Image courtesy of the North Otago Museum collection.

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Illustration by one of my favourite Kiwi illustrators, Clouston. Evelyn Maryon Clouston was born in Auckland in 1906, and had a lengthy career designing for the School Publications Branch, Department of Education in Wellington , as well as for various publishers such as Whitcombe & Tombs and Paul’s Book Arcade. She also worked for publishers in London for a spell. Image from NZ School Journal, Parts 1 & 2, 1957, courtesy of the  Doris Chadwick Collection of educational publications,  D233, NZ School Journals Vols 51, 1907-1960 , UoW Archives. 

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An advert from a GHB cookbook, published 1966.  GHB was a smaller, lesser known chain of grocery stores with a self line (tea, soap powder, etc), that existed from the 1950s until some time in the 1980s. It stood for ‘Good Housekeeping Brand’ (I don’t think it had anything to do with the magazine of the same name). They were still significant enough to issue several versions of this tome through the fifties and sixties. I get the idea it was located around the upper half of the North Island only.  Locations I know of were Auckland, Dannevirke, Pahiatua, Kaikoura, and Hawke’s Bay. Image courtesy of Mike Davidson collection. 

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Remember lolly scrambles? They’re probably a thing of the past now because everyone’s so precious about OHS issues. When I was a kid we were inevitably in Northland during the holidays – and in Waipu candy would be thrown out of a low-flying helicopter by  a rather daring, but dedicated Santa. They would never let Saint Nick do that these days, I’m guessing. Winstone staff’s children’s Christmas party, image courtesy of the Fletcher Trust, all rights reserved, ref #6351P/28. fletcherarchives.org.nz

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These two recipes from Goldpack are almost considered  Kiwi classics as perhaps anything out of the good old Edmond’s ‘Sure To Rise’ cookbook is. I covered the topic of the Xmas cake and pud here when I wrote about this Butland Indstries brand back in September 2012.

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A ‘Cinderella’ issued by the New Zealand Tuberculosis Association in 1955 to raise charity funds. Cinderellas were a kind of stamp that were not official New Zealand post issue and were primarily decorative. They usually served two main purposes – fund raising or promotion. As such, they are their own special area of collecting and some can fetch high prices – such as early pigeon post stamps. Colourful and charming, they were popular during the festive season and I have a collection of Christmas ones that I will probably feature next year.

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Now, this one is special to me. It’s an American  McCall’s magazine – but they were sold in New Zealand. My mother was a bit of a fan, especially of the annual Christmas issues – and we had stacks of them sitting around that went back to the mid sixties. The Yuletide issue was always an amazing, over the top extravaganza; the kind of Christmas you could only dream of. The cakes, desserts and gingerbread house spreads were especially amazing, covered in Yankee candies that you could not get down under. I’m not sure of the date for this particular one, but it would be after 1964.

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New Zealand Woman’s Weekly magazine, early December edition, 1953.

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One of the images recently featured by the New Zealand Herald in an article on the Farmers Santa parade over the years. This one was taken in 1966. Presumably courtesy of the Herald’s own collection.  nzherald.co.nz 

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Another illustration from the New Zealand  School Journal, part 3, 1957. It looks like it’s signed ‘L.F.’ but it’s actually C.F., so definitely the work of the very talented Conrad Frieboe, whom I have already covered up near the top of this post. Image courtesy of the  Doris Chadwick Collection of educational publications,  D233, NZ School Journals Vols 51, 1907-1960 , UoW Archives. 

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Woman holding a Christmas decoration made entirely of  silver milk bottle tops, Wellington, 1957. Cellulosic film negative, taken for the Evening Post newspaper by unidentified staff photographer. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library collection, ref EP/1957/4948-F. 

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All content of Longwhitekid copyright Darian Zam © 2015. All rights reserved.

Here In Spirit

A Whittaker’s chocolate campaign advert for Halloween 2013. I’ll just say I don’t share my Whittaker’s. That’s when I can get it. There’s not a ghost of a chance you’d get any and you’d have a ghoul to even ask (sorry).

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So I’m back (in black) momentarily, but I swear this will be my last post until Yuletide. I ain’t hangin’ around like a proverbial ghost in a graveyard.

And this is only because I got a few comments and messages along the lines of “yippee, you’ve finally returned!’ , so I made a vague rumbling about a Halloween post I’d been considering. Who knows when I may get the chance again.

I was just at the supermarket and the checkout chick sassily enquired “so, have you been trick or treating tonight?”
“Which one?” I quipped. “I don’t multi-task, I’m a male.” She looked a little aghast as she totted up my purchases. “That’s 6.73”, she said, trying to bring things back in order. “Can I have a seven cent discount, in that case?” I suggested. Think about it.

Anyway, people like to say that in Australasia we don’t celebrate All Hallows’ Eve. Tosh, I say. In fact there’s a big party going on down the street right now. And by ‘big party’ I mean, a large speaker set up on someone’s balcony, blaring schlocky horror movie-style soundtrack music with evil Vincent Price cackles dubbed over it, kids in witches hats and onesies eating their bodyweight in sugar off a communal trestle table – while adults stand around with their arms folded, rolling their eyes as they hold lukewarm beers,  droning about who is responsible for school pick-ups the coming week, mortgage repayment difficulties, taking care of grass lawns in summer, and other dull stuff that isn’t part of my life -thankfully.

But definitely when I was a kid, October 31st or the nearest day was another convenient excuse for dress ups; and school would have us come in costume. I remember one year we were ordered to ‘frighten’ the other classes but I flatly refused. “Why not?” demanded the teacher. “Because I’m funny, not scary” I stated quite seriously. Even though I was dressed as a clown, of which the outfit I had padded with pillows to make myself look ‘fat.’ Well, I had my own way of doing things, even back then.  So it wasn’t as big a deal as Guy Fawkes night, but we still did pumpkins, candy, and scary movies.

That’s about it – enjoy some spooky snacks, creepy adverts and ghoulish games below.

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‘Monster Mix’ confectionery stickers, possibly by Allens & Regina (A&R) gum. They date from the 1970s but I don’t know any more regarding what kind of product it was, who the designer was (very cool work though), and whether Regina even produced them for sure. Image courtesy of Steve Williams collection.

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The devil is in the details: A postcard published 1906 suggesting a new uniform for the All Blacks. Image courtesy of Rugby Pioneers 

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‘Hey, Hey Witch Way?’ was first produced in 1969 by Whitman (not sure who was responsible domestically, John Sands I think). We actually owned this in the late 1970s; it was a cast off from some family friends in a huge pile of no longer wanted board games. As far as I recall, it wasn’t very exciting playing (especially in comparison to the ‘Haunted House’  game, on the market at the same time, further down this post) so didn’t get much of a work out.

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‘Horror Bags’ were corn and potato snacks by Smiths; ‘Fangs’ were cheese and onion flavour; ‘Bones’ were salt and vinegar. I’m not sure how many different versions there were in this line, or even what decade they were being produced; the 1990s I suspect. I certainly don’t recall them.

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Student from Waiwhetu Girls College, Lower Hutt, painting a witch’s face on an actor for  a school  play, 1959. Alexander Turnbull Library collection, ref EP/1959/3810-1-F.

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I loved this show ‘A Haunting We Will Go‘, which ran on the TVNZ channel in 1979.  Like every other kid my age the ‘vampire’ was my favourite character; Count Homogenized, played  brilliantly by Russell Smith. Does anyone remember anything else about it except this iconic character? Not really.  He was a neurotic, flapping, wheedling, snarky member of the damned who lived only on bottles of milk he stole from others. He was like Mr. Humphries (I don’t think there was much doubt the Count was a flamer) and the Milky Bar kid rolled into one, and topped off with a bad wig. You can see episodes here. 

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Punch to make you palpitate by Ballin Brothers. Who knows what’s in this particular brew? These premixed cocktail drinks – the ‘Merry Widow’ brand was another one – were quite popular in the mid Twentieth Century. This flagon with its intact label probably dates from the 1950s. I previously wrote about the brand here. 

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‘Witch’s oil’ and ointment, manufactured by S.J. Evans in the 1900s and 1910s. It had disappeared by the 1920s. I assume it was a liniment for all kinds of aches and pains besides rheumatism. ‘Red Kriss’ ointment was formerly known as ‘Red Cross’ and likely changed in the early days of WWI conflict due to the connotation. It was made by Peter Dutton from 1892 onwards. Items from the Russell Knowles collection, author of photo unknown.

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Cadbury ‘Monster Bar’ wrapper, dating from the 1970s. There were at least four other  different designs in the series – a gorilla, dragon, T Rex, and a snowman (not sure how threatening the latter is, really). Image courtesy Steven Summers collection.

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The ‘Weirdos’ line by Wall’s ice cream was launched around 1978 under the auspices of the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Co (RPD). There was a series of posters and these nicely done promotional cards for at least five flavours which are now highly collectable. Image courtesy of Steve Williams collection.

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Just in time for Halloween, this image turned up yesterday, seemingly featuring a headless horse. Nobody seems to think this is a problem at the time – go figure. They were made of much stiffer stuff back then.
A water-powered gold mining stamper on Penny Weight Creek, Collingwood Taitapu Gold Estate, by my relatives the Tyrees (they were my great-aunt Irene Teward née Norman’s uncles). Stampers apparently pulverized the quartz and mixed it with water into a paste – and the gold was extracted using mercury.

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The ‘Haunted House’ board game, a three dimensional building with different rooms, was also known as ‘Which Witch’ and ‘Ghost Castle.’ I think it was made by Milton Bradley and first issued 1970. Just to confuse issues there was another board game at the time named ‘Haunted House’ as well as ‘Hey, Hey Witch Way?’ which I feature here. You don’t see these around too much at all now, so probably highly collectable. 

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Some more shots of the ‘Haunted House’ board game set-up with different ‘rooms.’ Back in the 1970s this was a real prize and if you owned it you were very lucky indeed. As far as I remember, yet another toy or game I was not allowed to have along with ‘Slime’ and ‘Mr. Potato Head.’ There’s some footage of it here.

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Poster from the ‘Weirdos’ line by Wall’s ice cream, circa 1978 under the auspices of the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Co (RPD). There was a series of posters for at least five flavours which are now highly collectable. Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Co also had the ‘Fiesta’, ‘La Grande’ and ‘Creemee’ brands. Image courtesy of Stephen Summers collection.

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Stickers by Sweetacres for their ‘Jaybees’ line of jellybeans, 1970s. Now I do remember this monster character and the TV adverts. Not sure if they’re still on the market today, but I suspect they may be. Image courtesy of Steve Williams collection.

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Tim Burton called, and he wants his ghoul back. I am pretty sure that the Hallensteins didn’t intend to be so totally creepy at the time. Or any other time. But them’s the breaks when you have a crappy printer. This advert  from the Nelson Evening Mail, 3rd of August, 1889. Image courtesy of the National Library of New Zealand.

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Not at all sinister, or anything: Pupils from Wilford School, Petone, Upper Hutt, in costumes for a play, 1957. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library collection, ref EP/1957/4894-F.

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All content of Longwhitekid copyright Darian Zam © 2015. All rights reserved.