A bit heavy handed - but maybe in war-time resorces were precious, and waste through meddling with the machines seen as more of a national than a private problem?

Some of the wartime posters often seem a bit odd. Typewriters were expensive items then but it was still expected that you would donate them for the war effort, aluminium saucepans to make aircraft, guns were handed in for the Home Guard as the Germans could invade at any moment. The poster is dated 1940, the Empire Typewriter factory was bombed in November 1940 which had been making the service field typewriter, other typewriter factories were making other things and very few machines were made during the war. My father's shop in East Ham, London was bombed, the typewriter survived and the shop continued to trade thoughout the war. Attitudes were very different then and the posters reflect this, don't you know there's a war on? sort of thing. My big sister and brother were evacuated twice during the war and got bombed twice.  Production didn't really get going again until the mid 1950's and up to then, like cars if you wanted one your name was put on the waiting list. My sweet ration book was used up to 1953, everything was still in short supply. Our local museum has a house just as it was in the 1930's which has a typewriter, a donation, just like the one in my father's shop. Children are encouraged to play with it, just as I did. I don't think they will break it, it's pretty bomb proof.

 

I kinda figured it had to do something about the war effort. I was just taken aback by the somewhat hostile tone Royal gave off. But it's alright since if we hadn't given up a lot for the War, well, I doubt many of us would be sitting here discussing it. 

At M. Hohne,
I actually made up the story about the shirt . It might have happened, but I don't remember. It's just something that I thought of, but hey, it happened to somebody if your friend wrote a song about it.

At KatLondon,
If that story is true, then I'm going to find that shipwreck, and have the largest collection of typewriters ever 

KatLondon and ztyper--10,000 typewriters!!?  W-O-W!!!  What a find that'd be.  But, I would hope that if the ship was sunk, that it would be deep and dark enough so that rust would not have oxidized the metal in these typewriters.  They'd require lots of attention, I'd bet.  But if these were found, and all these typewriters rescued, you'd have a lot of 70-80 year old pieces of history on your hands to restore.