Stuart Manley, co-owner of Barter Books, Alnwick
The original poster was part of a trio designed during the second world war by the Ministry of Information. After the first two went out – Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory and Freedom Is in Peril / Defend It With All Your Might – scathing letters appeared in the Times saying they were patronising. I think that’s why Keep Calm was held back and never publicly displayed, and the bulk of copies either pulped or lost. If they had started with this one, I think it would have been just as popular then as it is now. It was a winner, they just didn’t realise it.
I first found the poster in 2000, folded up at the bottom of a box of books we had bought at an auction. I liked it straight away and showed it to my wife Mary – she had it framed and put up in the shop. The next thing we found was that customers wanted to buy it. I suggested we make copies but Mary said: “No, it’ll spoil the purity.” She went away for a week’s holiday, so I secretly got 500 copies made.
I showed Mary the sales figures. She’s a very practical person, and from then on we started making more. For the next two years it was a huge local and regional hit, but not a national hit. That wasn’t until 2005 when a reporter called Susie Steiner from the Guardian did a little one-page feature, showing the Keep Calm poster as one of her favourite things. After that, all hell broke loose.
It was in December, so a perfect Christmas present. We got thousands of orders. And that’s really when the phenomenon began. Then people started copying it, ridiculing it and doing all sorts of things with it. It just grew and grew. It’s probably fair to say that by the end of 2006, when I was down in London and saw a Keep Calm mug with “Made in China” on the bottom, that it had gone international. Lots of people jumped on the bandwagon and, frankly, some of the parodies I got sick to the teeth of. But the actual basic message has helped a lot of people, I think. When I’m asked why it was so popular, I always say the same thing: it’s cheaper than antidepressants.
We’ve probably sold somewhere in the region of 100,000 copies to date. In the last year or so, we’ve typically only had two or three orders a month. Suddenly, with coronavirus, we’re getting a dozen a week – nothing like what happened back in 2005, but enough to prove it has a timeless resonance. Although it probably needs updating – Keep Calm and Stay at Home.
Susie Steiner, author and former Guardian journalist
I discovered Keep Calm and Carry On in 2005 when I went on a writing retreat in Devon. The poster was on the wall of the kitchen where we all gathered to cook and eat meals. I was told it came from a tiny bookshop in Alnwick. At the time I was working at the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, and when I got back I rang Barter Books and requested a poster to include in a roundup of things for the home. I could tell it was a “thing” not only because of my own reaction – I took a sense of comfort from it – but also because other people in the office really loved it and wanted to have one too.
I wasn’t surprised that it quickly became popular. I’m glad Barter Books did well out of it. A contributing factor was that there was no copyright attached to the poster, which meant a proliferation of products could occur without companies incurring fees. I am, at this moment, drinking from a mug which says: Keep Calm I’m a Teenager.
I think Keep Calm and Carry On speaks to unhappiness and depression with a message of stoicism and patience, which is helpful. Or at least more helpful than becoming panicked or outraged. It’s a bit like [the Persian adage], “This too shall pass”. Often one doesn’t have to do anything to change a rough patch: just wait it out. I liked the message when I had babies, because the rough patches they went through – terrible sleep, being finnicky about food, tantrum-throwing – also passed with time. I hung mine above the baby’s cot. Now Keep Calm and Carry On annoys me as much as the next person and I haven’t got the poster in the house anymore – though writing novels requires the same attitude.
I don’t think the blame for Keep Calm can be laid at my door. I responded to the poster myself, then showed it to the readership, and a market sprang up. I think it’s had its day now. But I did like a version I saw at the National Centre for Birds of Prey, at Duncombe Park. There is a sign up there which says Keep Calm and Carrion.
The Keep Calm and Carry On poster is available from barterbooks.co.uk; Susie Steiner’s new novel Remain Silent is published on 28 May.
