Printed 1940 New Year's 'Boomps a Daisy' card, for the fraudster and arms dealer Gerald Hamilton (model for Christopher Isherwood's 'Mr Norris'), with cartoon by Ruth Gill,Hitler and Stalin bumping bottoms.

A stylish and amusing 12mo card, with the cartoon printed in dark red and black on the front and the slug on the back. All printed. Tipped in inside the card is a bifolium, with 'BOOMPS-A-DAISY!' on the verso of the first leaf, and 'What is a BOOMP between friends?' and a short musical phrase at the head of the recto of the second leaf', with 'Peaceful New Year, | 1940 | from Gerald Hamilton | 91, Kinnerton Street | Belgrave Square, S.W 1.' beneath it. The association with Hamilton, who fluctuated between and fed off both right and left wing politics, and was the only man to be arrested for treason in both world wars, is quite delicious. From the papers of Tom Driberg. No other copy has been traced. Note: Ruth Gill, the daughter of a clergyman, produced ‘elegant’ advertising (particularly for packaging). She trained in advertising as well as design, and became art director at Colman, Prentice & Varley, Ltd. in 1954. She studied sculpture and design at the Chelsea School of Art, at a period when Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and Milner Gray were teaching there. She joined a small agency, John Tait and Partners in 1940, to work with Hans Schleger, and Mary Gowing, who were handling the ATS recruiting campaigns. Gill became involved in the recruiting-advertising for the ATS in 1940 and 1941, persuading women to take part in a ‘life and death affair’, involving night-time visits to compositors and foundaries, ‘all-night briefings at the Ministry of Information’, and altering advertising according to response. She became art director once the ATS advertising was complete."