The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising

Website: http://www.museumofbrands.com
Location: 2 Colville Mews, off Lonsdale Road, Notting Hill.
Today I visited the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. This small museum is hidden away on a back-street mews in Notting Hill. I arrived by bike and was glad I'll looked up the directions earlier and that there were lots of signs pointing out which cobbled alley to go down.

The cheery ticket vendor asked how I found out about the museum and, when I replied "From Wikipedia", she looked astonished. She gave me my cheap £3.50 student ticket and off I went. The whole museum is an extensive collection of packaging, posters, toys, games, souvenirs and other "everyday items" that provide a window on life in the past.
First stop was the Victorians. At first I wasn't too impressed because, although there was an enormous amount of stuff on display, it was hard to find any information tags explaining what it was. Slowly I began to find the information pieces dotted throughout the display, camouflaged against the brightly coloured items. There were souvenirs from Queen Victoria's jubilee, toys etc.

The next room was the Edwardians (1901-1910). This time saw the introduction of the Gillette safety razor, milk chocolate and the postage stamp booklet. Piece by piece throughout the museum I was able to track the development and introduction of these kind of things that now make up modern day living...

The next stretch of the museum was done by decade from the 1910s to the 2000s. By far the most interesting and amusing items were the postcards from different periods. These cheap postcards became very popular in the 1900s (when they were allowed to have a picture on the front). The numerous examples on display indicated the fashions of the time and the domestic issues.

A few examples:

The "Harem skirt" in the 1910s:
Food rationing in World War I with high prices of eggs:
In the 1920s wireless became popular:
The BBC was set up in 1922 and radio became immensely popular in the 1920s. Things which feel like they've been around forever were being set up and founded at every step through the museum.

It was funny to see adverts from the 1930s for Monopoly - "The Rage of America":In World War II there were lots of war-related pieces. There were jigsaws of battle scenes and military leaders, board games about moving around in the blackout, ash-trays with Hitler drawn on (so you could stub your cigarette out on him). The postcards kept their topical take on things:
The coronation of Elizabeth II in 1952 led to a lot of souvenir plates etc. Many families apparently bought their first TV set to watch the coronation ceremony.

The space race started in the 1950s and the children's games often had a space-related theme. There were board games taking you around the solar system, games about satellites, aliens as well as Dan Dare:
I'd heard of Dan Dare because my Dad used to play with Dan Dare guns and games.

There was an explosion of breakfast cereals in the 1950s and 60s - even Noddy got involved:
(I think "Ricicles are twicicles as nicicles" counts as my favourite advertising slogan in the whole museum). As TV became more and more popular (apparently driven by the popularity of Coronation Street), the TV stars appeared in more and more advertisments. "So and so says..." was on all the posters - selling products from sausages to chocolate bars.

The 1960s saw the introduction of yoghurt into the British diet. The 1960s and 70s also saw TV-tie-in board games too:
I realised sadly that no-one plays board games anymore (apart from a few stock favourites like Monopoly and Scrabble). It seems there was a wealth of entertainment for bored evenings that people in the past enjoyed. Now people just watch films and play computer games. I would bet they've lost their ability to imagine. For example the 1950s board game that took you around the solar system requires you to imagine going to each place and fighting the aliens there. Now on a computer game you can actually do it! Is that better or worse?

Anyway, once it got into the 1980s I began to recognise toys that I'd played with... remember Roland Rat anyone? It suddenly got a lot less interesting when you were looking at things from your own lifetime. I finished up in the partially complete 2000s section.

The final part of the museum was a section on "Brands" and then on "Advertising". Unfortunatly these were either large collections of products by one brand with no extra information OR a very detailed corporate information section about a company that was major sponsor for the museum. I skipped these because I felt I was just being advertised at...

Finally the circuit of the museum finished at the ticket desk with a little cafe and a TV showing "a history of television advertising". I watched a few amusing adverts - the best ones were advertising cigarettes.

Concluding observation: The information pieces often had the annoying habit of saying things unrelated to the items in the case. They'd say something really interesting and you'd look at everything in the case to see an example of it but... there was nothing there that illustrated the interesting point.

Summary: Took a while to get going but a very interesting, accessible trip. The things on display gave a real feel for what life was like back then...