The remarkable adverts featured in Peterborough newspapers during WW2 - from Oxo to ‘gas-proof air raid shelter’

Most of the material was culled from a special supplement produced by The Evening Telegraph in 1989, 50 years after the war began. That supplement also featured advertisements printed in Peterborough newspapers during the war. Today, we reprint a selection and they include both local and national products, items that have long since disappeared, and a few that are still going strong today. The tone of the adverts reflects the time and is very different to what we see today. Indeed, some would almost certainly fall foul of the Advertising Standards Authority. It might have been wartime and people needed light relief more than ever. The Embassy Theatre had a production of the comedy thriller Poison while on the silver screen - in this case the Savoy Cinema in Palmerston Road, Woodston – Laurel and Hardy were starring in Saps At Sea. Bisto, Persil and Oxo were some of the household names of the war years which have retained that status to this day. Locally, Groby Granite Co, of Dogsthorpe Road, were advertising its ‘gas-proof air raid shelter’, which, boasted the ad, could be ‘erected in a few hours.’ Meanwhile, Hoyles, of the Arcade, Peterborough, were selling blackout materials.