A whole book could be written about the psychological divide there used to be between having a 'profession' and being 'in trade'. People used to be snobby about the latter. This is why we adore High Wages by Dorothy Whipple: Jane, who sets up a dress shop, is being both brave and subversive; it wasn't something young women 'did'. We get a little, tiny bit of this at Persephone Books. A publisher 'in trade'? And of course this is relevant to why most publishers don't also have bookshops. It's not just that they don't want to annoy the distributor (the middle man between the publisher and the bookshop), it is more than this. Anyway. For those who find it odd that Persephone Books, dedicated to reviving forgotten women writers, is also in trade, here is proof that it is part of our genetic make-up: in Germany at the turn of the last century our ancestors ran the 'Habitat' of Breslau ie a large and flourishing ironmonger cum department store. The building is still there in Wroclaw, formerly Breslau, but then you could enter the building on three different sides, nowadays the three buildings are divided one from another. But they still exist. And the genes ditto. (This  nicely printed piece of cardboard once had a calendar at the bottom, now lost, so it's impossible to tell what date it is but presumably around 1900/1910.)

Five oddments this week and then the Post will be on holiday for two weeks (buckets and spades in Cornwall). Today, a painting we have had on the Post before but it can bear repeating many times: Flowers in a Jug by the painter Eileen Mayo (1906-94), details of her life here.

In February 1945 Ardizzone flew to join the British Army in Germany and recorded the closing months of the war there. His drawings show the devastation of the country and its people, interspersed with jovial scenes of the British troops. Here weary and defeated German soldiers make their way along a tree-lined road. Another incredible drawing – can't you just feel the soldiers' exhaustion and despair and humiliation? Lest we forget indeed.

On 11 June 1944, just after D Day, Ardizzone boarded a landing craft headed to Normandy. This is one of the drawings he made during the crossing. Lest we forget: the men who died and the men who fought and even the men who endured the seasickness. The saddest thing looking at these amazing wartime drawings is that nowadays no-one would be cultured or sensitive or empathetic enough to commission an artist to draw a war or a crisis or a world event. And yet a drawing or painting can convey so much more than a photograph. Weirdly, the only time we commission someone to draw something is in a court, where the rule of 'no photography' applies but a drawing is permitted. And yet David Gentleman's painting of 59 Lamb's Conduit Street conveyed so much more than a photograph; and we hope to have a painting of the outside of 8 Edgar Buildings very soon.

Ardizzone drew The War in Maida Vale, or There is life in the old dogs yet, in 1941. 'This drawing is a typical Ardizzone portrayal of the interactions between men and women. The subject is the newly established Home Guard, or Dad's Army. The cheery tone shows great affection for the elder men' (IWM).

'Edward Ardizzone began to work full-time for the War Office from 1940. His first commission was to follow the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France and record their activities. During this period of the so-called 'Phoney War’, Ardizzone found little to record in terms of combat activity. His drawings show the routines of army life: drills, passing time in mess rooms, eating and drinking, as well as the incongruity of the presence of British troops within the local French culture' (Imperial War Museum).

(

Edward Ardizzone (1900-79) 'is one of the most enduringly popular of the artists commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC) in WW2, as well as being one of the longest serving. During the 1930s he was best known for his illustrations in the Radio Times and in children’s books, so was perhaps a surprising choice as official war artist. However, during the Second World War he travelled more widely in Britain and Europe than any other war artist, documenting his experiences in both drawings and diaries which today are kept by the Imperial War Museum'. This week on the Post a selection of Ardizzone's wartime illustrations at the IWM, starting with a lithograph which we now have for sale in the shop (apologies, we cannot send it as it is framed): 'The Tilbury Shelter 1941'.