News of the World

Finally finished hanging pictures on the walls this afternoon - only taken six months since the redecoration was finished! Partly, this has been down to deciding what will actually go back up - and where - but we did need to reframe quite a few pieces as well, all of which took time.
One of the pieces we had reframed recently was a cross-stitch sampler done by Mrs C’s grandmother in 1939. When we got it back we were intrigued to see a bit of newspaper stuck in a plastic pocket on the back of the mount. This had been discovered by the framer when he took the old mount apart, and he thought we should have it as part of the “history” of the piece. He also scanned the back of the sampler to show that the fabric was wrapped around a piece of stout card with a picture of a nurse on it. No idea if that was significant, or if it was just a random piece of card that was lying around at the time.
What I do find interesting is the stories on this particular page of the Daily Herald from 21st December 1939. There are an awful lot of parallels with the news stories of today, not least of which is that they are set against the background of a war which, up to that point, had only seen fighting on the ground in the east of Europe and only sporadic air raids on England. There is an article about cutting waste and another about how the war is to be paid for. Then there are the calls for pay rises for various workers from the TUC - substitute Train drivers for Bus and Tram drivers and this could almost be a paper from last week. All that’s missing is an article about protecting yourself from an infectious disease.
Plus ca change!