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Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Health and Strength


I'm left wondering if the master copy of this magazine cover photo was hand tinted
because only the portion that is Mr. Churchill is in color.





 

7 comments:

  1. Even in those goofy trunks, he's a keeper!

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  2. Perhaps it was a superimposition. Full colour photographs were still few and far between in 1958. It just simply cost too much to produce and we were still in post-war austerity. There was still rationing until 1954. Although the 1958 pound was only just over one-and-a-half US dollars, you can see the internal purchasing power in that an entire magazine only cost 1/- (one shilling).

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    1. I noticed the price, too. I was amazed to find shilling coins still in circulation (valued five pence) on my first visit to the UK in 1988. Knowing I would be going back, I kept some, but they had been withdrawn two years later.

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    2. I collect stamps and recognized 1/- as one shilling. I managed to deal with Sterling on my first trip to the UK but when I went a second time, you had decimalised already.

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  3. I know from past experience trying to find information on Spencer can we difficult. Doing a search on his name brings you a plethora of data on that well-known family. But I know almost nothing on this guy. Is this the actor you can find on IMDB? Was that his real name? If so, was he related to the Prime Minister? The list goes on.

    Believe me, it's quite a rabbit hole if you start looking

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    1. If you add "bodybuilder" to the search parameters, some (but not all) of the references to Winston Churchill's family drop out. And there's still very little. I found a stray photo attached to one of the IMDB boards that does look like him in middle age, so yes, he might have been an actor. As to the authenticity of the name, who knows? I have access to the English Birth Registries on line, and there were no less than seven men with that name born in the time frame most likely for our Spencer. Yes, a rabbit hole.

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