Some may say "Good God, it's just a commercial on a record!" but I take a great deal of interest in this type of thing and I know others do as well. It isn't all about the record or even the content but these old recordings give an insight into the culture of the day, society attitudes and even how our speech has changed over the years!
If these things also interest you, please read on ... otherwise best give this a miss!
HISTORY:
Take a step back in time, long long ago, in fact 53 years ago.
First up, there was Gough Whitlam talking about "Living Without Litter" in 1972, governments trying (and still trying) to get people to clean up after themselves ... it's a never ending problem.
The then NSW Minister for the Environment (Mr Jack Beale) began an earnest anti-litter push on 1st May, 1972 ... as reported in the Queanbeyan Age newspaper
"Today a litterer can be fined $5 on the spot if he litters a street or $100 for littering highways, forests or national parks. During the campaign, no mercy would be shown to litterers. Councils have been asked to strictly apply the law."
Mr Steve Mauger (MLA for Monaro) commented, in support of the changed littering law, that NSW was one of the messiest areas of the world
As part of this "let's clean up NSW - or else" campaign, printed and recorded material was distributed to inform the people of NSW about the changed law and it's enforcement.
This record is one of the recordings sent to broadcast stations at that time ...
NSW GOVERNMENT Broadcast Message
ANTI-LITTER CAMPAIGN
May 1972
Catalogue number: PRS.2297
Produced by ART Creative Services
I can't be 100% sure (it was a long time ago afterall) but seem to remember that ART Creative Services was an "arm" of the NSW Government.
Plays at 45rpm
TRACKS:
DE.005 Version 1 - 15 seconds (")
DE.005 Version 2 - 30 seconds (")
DE.005 Version 3 - 30 seconds (")
DE.005 Version 4 - 60 seconds (")
DE.005 Version 5 - 60 seconds (")
All of the commercials are vocal (male voice artist), no background music. To paraphrase the jist of these advertisements, here is some of the 30 second version
"In the interests of a better environment, we ask three questions"
"Question one, should fines on people who drop litter be increased?" - followed by various Yes responses (of course)
"Question two, what type of person does this?" - followed by various responses such as "a bad person", "not a nice guy"
"Question three, have you ever littered?" (silence) the question is repeated ... "you see we don't like to rubbish ourselves" ... end of commercial
Each version of this commercial has a different theme, these are not just longer versions of the same basic scripting ... for example, the 2nd 30 second track is more about denial, many people claiming they never litter and yet ... "they" can see where they have been - almost a Twilight Zone feeling to that one!
Each track does NOT run into the next, that would be bad if the station presenter was momentarily distracted! When the end of any track is reached, the design of the grooves means that the styli is skipped back slightly and a low level "blimp blimp blimp" is produced
To play any of the inner tracks, you need to manually cue the track up
The cover used is one of my own completely blank special cardboard archival sleeves, we used tons of these many years ago in the radio stations. I have changed this sleeve because the original sleeve had a lot of play time information all over it - stations needed to record which day and the times they played these records.
The vinyl is in very (very) good condition, visually inspected and I cannot see any scratches or marks on either side of the media. Just to be sure, and I wanted to listen in any case, I have played the entire release and there are absolutely no issues with surface noise nor clicks or pops.
The archival outer sleeve has a clear plastic liner built in so the vinyl is well protected.
