AFFISCHER | Storbritannien efter andra världskriget brukar allmänt kallas för ”the nanny state”.
Begreppet – i betydelsen The Nanny Knows Best – myntades 1965 av Iain Macleod som var redaktör på tidskriften The Spectator.
Detta var en period när medborgarna förväntades följa alla hurtiga uppmaningar från myndigheternas informationskampanjer om vad man borde göra och inte göra.
Många av budskapen känner vi igen även från Sverige. Det var en tid när man här fortfarande talade om ”folkhemmet” utan vare sig nostalgi eller ironi i tonen.
Marcus Berkmann har recensenserat den nyutkomna boken Keep Britain Tidy and Other Posters From the Nanny State av Hester Vaizey
Governments of the times clearly saw it as part of their remit to wag a furious finger at the populace, to tell it to tuck its shirt in and stop dragging its feet. And no sweets before dinner. How many times have I told you?
[…]
For ‘Venereal Diseases,’ whispers a ministry of health poster in 1948, ‘Quack “cures” are useless. No self-treatment ever cured syphilis or gonorrhoea.’ There’s a photo of a man looking worried, as well he might. A few pages later, we see a nuclear family walking down to the beach with a picnic basket. They’re blond, they’re grinning and the little boy is carrying a beach ball. What could possibly go wrong? Look out for man-traps? Beware of the shark? ‘Holiday Health Depends on Holiday Hygiene’ yells the headline. ‘Wash Your Hands Before Eating.’ This was the Scottish home and health department talking, in the mid 1960s — their follow-up to the barnstorming number one hit, ‘Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases.’
[…]
There are two ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ posters, with paintings by Royston Cooper, I am very tempted to hang on the walls of my children’s bedrooms, for purely aesthetic reasons, of course. […] But collected together, they document a vanished age, when we were told what to do and sometimes even did what we were told. ‘Life is Better on the Land.’ ‘Be Really Cool, Man — Save.’ And above all, ‘Don’t Ask a Man to Drink and Drive.’ As though anyone ever needed to be asked.
Den Royston Cooper som omnämns i den citerade texten har även fått bidra med en illustration till bokens framsida. Affischen ”Keep Britain Tidy” (översta bilden) kom i en lång rad olika versioner och av olika konstnärer.
Övrigt: Fler affischer i artikeln “That’s us told… posters from when the nanny state knew best – in pictures”, The Guardian.
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