Over-paid, over-sexed, and over here!

Nothing I like better than rummaging for junk at our local market after I’ve bought the fresh food. This week on one of those inexplicable impulses that only fellow junk collectors will understand I bought a pile of books which were collections of old newspaper cartoons.

If I needed a reason it was because as part of the Beginner’s Photography series I will be soon touching on the subject of composition and sometimes there’s no better way of studying composition that to look at the work of a good cartoonist.

I also enjoy modern history and I was soon engrossed in the strange world my grandparents and parents used to inhabit. To my surprise I found a good number of the cartoons involved affectionate digs at the Americans.

A reminder of course that they came flooding over here during the Second World War (when they arrived late, as usual) and then stayed in very large numbers well into the Seventies as part of the Cold War.

On arrival many here were ambivalent about the landing of our American cousins who of course took an instant interest in local women, causing some to pithily remark that they were: ‘Over-paid, over-sexed, and over here!’ The American authorities took great steps to ensure their troops were on their best behaviour and they soon found many friends here; a few even left their genes. If invited to tea in an English house they were invariably very popular as they had access to all kind of consumer products form coffee to fridges, which simply were not available in austerity ravaged Britain.

We don’t normally dabble in history on the Blog – so I though why not? Here are a couple of cartoons from the 1960s which help record the visit of our cousins.