Somnus Bedding: Full o’ the Joys of Spring! (Nottingham Chronicle, 1935)
We're running headlong into that annual three-month period of dashed expectations that we'll soon be enjoying uninterrupted sunshine and warmth otherwise known as 'spring'. What better way could there be to celebrate the appearance of daffodils and dandelions on suddenly unkempt grass verges than by digging out an eighty-year-old advert for mattresses that involves a terrible pun on the word?
Clearly the bad puns have done the job because the bedding company started making mattresses in the 1840s and is still at it today. But perhaps it's less the scattershot thirties copywriting that ensured the long-term survival of brand as their choice of a name steeped in classical longevity. Somnus, after all, is the Roman god of sleep, the mythological child of night and darkness said to reside in an underworld cave with a garden of poppies and other narcotic plants growing around the front entrance.
He's also noted for having no gate or door to his dwelling, to prevent the creak of hinges and clatter of latches disturbing his slumber when his wife, Pasithea, Muse of relaxation and hallucinations, fancies going out. What this has to do with the arrival of spring, other than the tenuous connection between the season and the coiled things that make mattresses comfortable, is the simple fact that Somnus seems to be living the kind of relaxed existence we're all hoping it might bring with it.
Elizabethan Banqueting Suite (c.1963)
There's something revealing about this full-page advert from the early sixties, showing what was then the height of post-war sophistication and luxury. In its heyday, the Elizabethan Rooms, a kind of privately-run People's Palace located above the former Co-op department store on Upper Parliament Street, offered dining and dancing, music and entertainment, on a vast scale.
During the fifties, places like The Elizabethan evolved to become the Trent FM Arenas of their day. If the place seen here looks like a Nottingham capitalist version of a Soviet Palace of Culture, combining all the pleasures of an oversized ballroom with the communality of a works canteen, that's probably because it was pretty much just that.
These were places where hundreds of couples would come for a posh dinner, then clear a space for a live dance orchestra and a big session of kicking up their heels to the rhythms of the foxtrot, rumba and cha-cha-cha. But it wasn't going to last, and The Elizabethan played its own part in the massive cultural transition that was just getting underway when this picture was used to advertise the venue's palatial facilities.
On Thursday 7 March 1963, a Brian Epstein-managed touring package of Liverpudlian bands stopped by, charging a few shillings a ticket to see the likes of Billy J Kramer, Gerry and the Pacemakers and a soon-to-be well-known combo called The Beatles, who just had their first hit with Please Please Me.
Less than two months later, a return visit to Nottingham had to be moved to The Odeon on Angel Row, even the sea of tables seen here not enough to hold the audiences for these new bands. It was the beginning of the end for the big ballrooms – though The Elizabethan itself hung on well into the nineties as a venue for works outings and wedding receptions.
More Advertising Sectioned on LeftLion
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
