Time and Tide magazine, 1963–4

Time and Tide magazine was a new title to me when seven copies from 1963 and 1964 were recently gifted to us. 

It was founded in 1920 by Lady Rhondda who edited (and bankrolled) it until her death in 1958. It was a news and current affairs weekly on the lines on New Statesman. Under her influence, between the wars it had been a vocal supporter of women’s rights but this stance became more diluted after the Second World War. My brief research suggests it turned increasingly right wing but unless I’m missing something, our copies suggest a broad, middle-of-the-road, sweep. A letter to the editor in our 26 March 1964 copy makes the accusation that, ‘politically, you could not get further to the right without joining the lunatic fringe’. So I must be missing something.

Besides, Time and Tide was on its downward spiral. By December 1964 it had doubled in price to two shillings, and in its final years became a monthly before expiring in 1979. The full title of our magazines (Time & Tide: John O’London’s) suggests that T&T had absorbed another declining magazine, John O’London’s Weekly. I think this latter magazine had disappeared in 1956 before being briefly revived around 1960 – I’m guessing that T&T took it over around about then. Whatever happened, our copies have a broad mix of national and international politics, business news, interviews of literary figures, and reviews of books, television and the arts. 

One possible reason for the slow decline was that there was so little advertising. This was probably editorial policy rather than a difficulty in finding advertisers, but for our purposes it meant that advertising was restricted to the back and insides of the cover, the occasional full-pager within, and a smattering of small ads. The advertising material is also slightly odd: I’ve included a few examples here.