In Owen Hatherley’s article (Let them eat cupcakes, 9 January), it was stated that “the Keep Calm and Carry On poster was not mass produced until 2008”, and that only “a handful were printed on a test basis”. This is not true. As our research project on the communication history of the Ministry of Information has established, some 2.45m copies of the poster had been passed to local distribution centres by early autumn 1939. However, a number of those involved in the campaign had already begun to express their doubts: “the population might well resent having this poster crammed down their throats at every turn”; it was “too commonplace to be inspiring”; and “it may even annoy people that we should seem to doubt the steadiness of their nerves”. The entire campaign was scrapped after just four weeks. Stocks of “Keep Calm” were retained until April 1940, after which they were pulped as part of a government effort to recycle paper. Only a few copies survived, including the one discovered in Alnwick in 2000. Links to a version of the full story, written by Dr Henry Irving, can be found on the MOI project’s website.
Professor Simon Eliot
Institute of English Studies, University of London
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