This photograph was printed on page one of the Observer on 28 February 1954, accompanied by the caption: “Incongruous and irreverent; bidders make themselves at home in Messrs. Sotheby’s auction-rooms in Bond-street for an important sale of silver. The Lennoxlove toilet service, which originally belonged to one of Charles II’s favourites, went for £17,000 to the Royal Scottish Museum. Another piece, the ‘Galloway Mazer’, made by a Scottish craftsman in 1569, fetched £11,000.”
Bown’s photograph was one of only six in the 12-page Observer, and was by far the largest. There was a single-column portrait of a civil servant called Paul Sinker, also by Bown, two single-column details of artworks, and two photographs from Cyprus by another regular contributor to the Observer, David Potts. The issue is visually dominated throughout by advertisements for overcoats, lingerie, petrol and pharmaceutical products, such as the enticing Crookes Halibut Oil (25 capsules for 2/6).
However, you got plenty of words for your 3½d. The front page alone consisted of 17 individual stories including reports from conflict in Cairo, Beirut and New Delhi; domestic policy stories; a call to X-Ray every man over 45 who smokes more than 20 cigarettes a day; the weather forecast; and a piece titled Invalid’s Progress, which reads:
“Mr AA Milne, the 72-year-old author, who is recovering from pneumonia in a Kent nursing home, was reported yesterday to be making good progress.
Sir George Robey, 84, who has been resting after a slight heart attack, was said at his home in Saltdean, Sussex, to be ‘going on very nicely’.”
Milne lived for another two years, Robey died the day after publication.
