A bank holiday blast from the past for you. I don't think I've seen any episodes of The Avengers with Linda Thorson, but she must have been reasonably popular, judging from this ad. Of course, Belle Colour is still going strong, and still blethers on about the 'natural look' it gives you.

Ironically, according to Wikipedia, Linda Thorson's hair was bleached blonde for the show, but became so damaged by the process that she had to wear wigs!

Yes, I clearly have a thing about sweetener ads, but I was amused by this one, because I came to the conclusion that it must have been named after the noise you made when tasting the product.

If anyone can explain to me what the connection is between wearing a girdle and walking in front of a desert backdrop, let me know using the link on the front page.

I picked this for the marvellous language and colours used in the shoe ad, but I thought I'd leave in the iron ad as evidence that in 40 years, the only real change in iron technology is the steam generator iron. As an aside, I remember a lodger my family had in the early '80s asking for a steam iron, and my mother having to tell him that we hadn't got one: we couldn't afford it! Steam irons are a lot cheaper nowadays...

Never mind about putting your feet up with some chocs, or flying off on holiday, REAL indulgence is, erm, a new cooker. The High Speed Gas people ARE being good to us!

So there you are. The Flour Advisory Bureau are suggesting that if you don't feed your kids bread, you're a bad mother. At least pseudo-sciency bullshit used to be more clearly attributable back in 1969...

Brooke Bond, of course, also produce PG Tips, which eventually became the main tea brand of the company in the UK. The thing is, I don't think the picture used at this time is actually racist, because tea pickers do tend to have dark skin as a result of prolonged sun exposure...but it's interesting that PG lightened the picker's skin in later years, and finally removed her altogether. I suppose this is the same issue that Camp Coffee faced when they altered their label in 2006. Now, of course, the label is historically inaccurate, but I'm not really sure that I want the old one back. Historical accuracy (or even modern-day accuracy) is one thing, but ignoring its legacy and impact is another. It's a positive sign of the progress of ethnic minorities in the UK that companies now realise that there's no point offending your consumers.

Wow. A whole pint of milk? A day? Woe betide anyone who was lactose intolerant, but perhaps that didn't exist back then. Check out the '4d' on the bottle: I wonder how much money it took to change all the bottles when we went decimal?