A Horlicks advertisement from the original brochure for the Festival of Britain in 1951. (Double click on the picture to read the text).
In another half minute, John and Elizabeth will be seated in these two chairs, relaxing at last after a strenuous day. This has been their home ever since they were married. All their dreams, their hopes, their fears are enshrined here: here, for them, is the axis of the world. And so to bed – to pleasant sleep and sweet dreams made by a certain cup of Horlicks. For Horlicks, as John and Elizabeth know so well, is the safeguard of profound sleep that means full, enjoyable living…
A top ranking video clip of a Horlicks advertisement from 2011:
Well, that does for two preconceptions of mine: a. That Horlicks is only for adults of a certain age (I’ll never hide my jar in the bottom of the supermarket trolley again) and b. That no-one outside these shores could ever be interested. The older ad is fascinating for different reasons: who’d have thought waiting for your daily Horlicks was so poetic?
I suspect that the Festival of Britain was an establishment attempt to drag the fully employed but low paid person on the Clapham omnibus kicking and screaming into the latter half of the twentieth century. The adverts of the time capturing precisely what the London metropolitan movers and shakers, yes they existed even then, thought this was how we peasants ought to be conducting our lives. The Skylon in particular was a pointy object with deep meaning, everyone else simply thought it a phallic symbol gone wrong.
Horlicks was one of those commercial successes, a product that had absolutely no use whatever yet sold by the boatload, as did Ovaltine. At least with the latter you could join the club.
We are the Ovaltineys, little girls and boys
Make your requests, we’ll not refuse you
We are here just to amuse you
Would you like a song or story?
Will you share our joys?
At games and sports we’re more than keen
No merrier children could be seen
Because we all drink Ovaltine
We’re happy girls and boys.
As sung on radio Luxembourg, my god! as the BBC used to gasp, “those people..a broadcasting company..they are in trade” They either tried to ignore the competition or treated them as a bad smell under the nose. Ironic as that is exactly what the BBC itself has become today.
As well as an Ovaltiney song sheet we were given a lapel badge, a prized possession in those days of yore, dripping with austerity and dripping.
Nick from The Apprentice is one of the few people who still use ‘horlicks’ to mean ‘balls-up’. “They made an ebsolute horlicks of it.”
Interesting rebranding, from induced narcolepsy to severe hyperactivity.
We used to have ours with a dipped Cadbury’s Flake.
‘In another half minute, John and Elizabeth will be seated in these two chairs…’ It begs the question: where are they now? Are they strolling to the chairs? Are they running? If they’ve been having a bit of slap and tickle, 1951 style – curtains drawn, windows closed, tie removed, no giggling, lay back and think of England – is this subliminal advertising telling the reader to make hay while the sun shines for after a cup of Horlicks you’re dead to the world?
Brit:
I thought ‘making a Horlicks’ of something was only invented a few years ago (by a Tory politicians?). One of our shorter-lived idioms, then.
I remember you could get a pot of the stuff as a nightcap in the seaside hotels my brother and I used to stay in with our grandmother. Served in a ‘silver’ (i.e. metal) pot, and when you poured it nothing but white froth would come out of the spout for some while. I loved the stuff. Oh those diff’rent times… Can’t stand anything resembling a milky drink any more.
Amazing that all this nostalgia can be brought on by the mention of a hot milky drink… the advertisers did a great job. Malty your reference to the Ovaltineys’ club reminds me of Jacob’s biscuits ‘if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club’ – I think the same theme tune is still being used to this very day, though another song was also used.