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The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutuola, 1952 - Part 7

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Welcome to Seventy years of books, where I’ll be blogging my way through the seventy titles originally compiled for the Big Jubilee Read.
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The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutuola, 1952 - Part 7

On our way to the Unreturnable-Heaven’s town

Donna M Day
Jun 21, 2023
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The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutuola, 1952 - Part 7

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Arched doorway set into bookshelves filled with books. The words "Seventy years of books" are written across the top.

Welcome back to Seventy years of books, where I'm blogging my way through the seventy titles originally compiled for the Big Jubilee Read. This week, I’m continuing with the first book, Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard.

Before we move onto the book, I just wanted to share this little sighting of Sooty I had in Blackpool, following his appearance last time.

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Picture of Sooty with a swirly blue background. Text reads: "North Pier, the birthplace of Sooty"
Sooty on the North Pier in Blackpool

Sooty was performing on the North Pier in Blackpool as early as 1948, long before his television debut in 1952, and you can still see the original puppet there. And now back to The Palm-Wine Drinkard!

Cover of Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard. The authors name and title are written in dark green against a light green background with an orange spots and stripe pattern.

On our way to the Unreturnable-Heaven’s town

The palm-wine drinkard and his wife arrive, unwillingly and inexplicably, in Unreturnable-Heaven’s town, where many things are topsy-turvy, such as the inhabitants climbing a ladder before they position it. This creates a nice sense of disorientation.

The residents of the town are very violent towards the couple. There is an increasing feeling that the palm-wine drinkard and his wife are rapidly losing all control from their forced arrival in the town to the assaults the townspeople rain upon them.

After escaping the dreadful Unreturnable-Heaven’s town, the palm-wine drinkard and his wife consider returning to her father in her hometown, but decide instead to keep moving forward as going back would be too difficult.

This brings up a nice philosophical point around only being able to move forwards and not go back, which amusingly contradicts the palm-wine drinkard’s entire mission to recover his dead palm-wine tapster.

There are again lots of references to time creating a sense of pace and there are also a lot of references to distances travelled which adds a feeling of weariness.

The palm-wine drinkard tenderly cares for his wife while she is recovering from their escape, actually to his own detriment, which reinforces their relationship and adds a feeling of genuine love between the couple.

The control they have lost has not however been regained as once more unknown forces take control of their movements. They are dragged by a white tree into its hollow where they meet Faithful-Mother. I love this image of a magical woman in the trunk of a tree which reminded me of the residents of Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree series.

This week in 1952

Pete Farndon, founding member and bass guitarist of band, The Pretenders was born on 12 June. Actress, Isabella Rossellini was born on 18 June and actor, John Goodman was born on 20 June.

On 11 June, actress, Agnes Moorehead, known for spectacularly playing Samantha’s mother, Endora on Bewitched and, actor Jack G. Lee were divorced.

Agnes Moorehead playing Endora in TV’s Bewitched
Agnes Moorehead playing Endora in TV’s Bewitched

1952 song of the week: Blue Tango, Leroy Anderson

This dramatic instrumental has prominent strings and heavy percussion which together create a sense of beckoning, familiar to the themes of a tango. The magical ending finishes the piece on a mysterious note.

Blue Tango was later named the bestselling song of 1952 by Billboard and was covered several times including some versions with lyrics, written by Mitchell Parish.

1952 products of the week: Spangles and Ovaltine

While neither of these products were founded in 1952, I couldn’t resist including them after I found this great advert from a magazine printed in March 1952.

Advert from Illustrated magazine dated March 1, 1952. The left hand side features an advert for spangles. Two characters are shown. The man is holding a sign reading "Only one point" in black capital letters and the woman is wearing a hat laden with fruit and a packet of Spangles, which is she eating. She is also wearing Spangles as a necklace and earrings. The top of the advert says "Tops them all for fruitiness" in red and black writing. Underneath the characters is black text reading "Imagine the flavours of sweet, golden, pineapples, big, ripe strawberries, refreshing limes - you'll find them all in every Spangles packet. Each glistening sweet is neatly wrapped and the gay, red and yellow packet just naturally fits into your pocket or handbag. What better value could you get for one point than Spangles... the wonderful new sweets with the rich fruity flavours!" Below that in red capitals is the word "Spangles" follwed by "The new sweet treat by MARS" in red text. The flavours are named in black text at the bottom of the advert as follows "Flavours: STRAWBERRY . ORANGE. LEMON . BLACKCURRANT . LIME . PINEAPPLE". On the right hand side of the page is an advert for Ovaltine. This shows a female character is old fashioned farm clothing, holding a bundle of straw with a farm shown in miniature beneath her. Above her head is red and black text reading "Why Ovaltine is Different from any other Food Beverage". Next to her, in black text, is the following "WHEN, early this century, 'Ovaltine' was introduced to serve the cause of good health, it was unique... an original product. It readily won the support of medical men. It was adopted by Hospitals and Nursing Homes. It rapidly established itself in world-wide popularity. 'Ovaltine' still maintains its leader-ship... its essential differences. The differences concern the selection and pro-portions of its constituents, and the steps taken in the interests of quality. The 'Ovaltine' Farms were establsihed to set the highest standards for the malt, milk and eggs used. The use of eggs in 'Ovaltine' is important, and so is its vitamin content. For these reasons make delicious 'Ovaltine' your regular family beverage for promoting health and vigour - for helping to ensure natural, restorative sleep. Remember... 'Ovaltine' offers you the highest possible quality at the lowest possible price. Prices in Gt. Britain & N. Ireland, 1/6, 2/6 & 4/6".

Both adverts, especially the Spangles one, are very much of their time. They take a very different approach, with Spangles being focussed on fun and flavour and Ovaltine on health benefits, but both make a point of being affordable in the post-war world. I particularly like that Spangles are advertising that they are available for only one ration coupon rather than the two required for other sweets. As I said in an earlier post, although tea rationing in the UK ended in 1952, sugar (including sweets) would remain rationed until 1953.

Spangles themselves were launched in 1950 and proved very popular, partly due to this one ration token requirement. They were eventually discontinued in 1984 before being briefly reintroduced in 1995 - I do have memories of receiving Spangles in party bags given out at birthday parties as a child. Tunes lozenges were originally a relative of the Spangles brand and continue to share the shape of the original sweets today.

Ovaltine is much older, originally being introduced in 1904 and continues to be available today. Originally invented as a fortified powdered, hopeful solution to malnutrition, it’s something that I and many others of my generation remember being given by Gran when you were sick. Die hard fans love their Ovaltine whipped up in a latte or even as an unusual topping for ice cream!

As someone who works in marketing, something which particularly struck me about these adverts is how much text is included. Comparing them with an advert from this year, you can see how much less text we tend to use for adverts now.

The adverts from 1952 are more about storytelling and using the story to sell the product, whereas today’s advert is selling an image of “a comfortable, better life” in much fewer words. One of the things I’ve been taught when designing an infographic is that if it takes more than fifty seconds to read, there’s too much text. Print advertising is similar in that it is more visual today, with at a glance slogans to reinforce the images and if further information is needed, it’s added in smaller text, like the company and website information above.

Historical perspectives: The Singing Street: children playing in Edinburgh (1950s)

This great little video from the National Library of Scotland shows children playing in 1950s Edinburgh.

The footage shows skipping and roller skating with a soundtrack of children singing traditional songs.

It’s a lovely, joyous little montage that shows the dying art of children playing.


You can find all of the Seventy Years of Books archive here.

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