WE’RE all familiar with public health drives urging us to take care of ourselves, but they’re nothing new.

Long before public information films or even the widespread ownership of televisions to broadcast them to, Whitehall was extolling the virtues of good food and vigorous activity.

In September of 1937 a campaign called National Fitness was adopted by local authorities across the land and local newspapers were enlisted to spread the word.

At the centre of a full-page Adver feature called simply Physical Fitness was a photograph of young men exercising in gym kit. The venue was what was then Commonweal Grammar School in Old Town.

There were also reassurances for women that they could be both fit and beautiful.

We wrote: “Good health has, from time immemorial, been the most valuable of mankind’s possessions. It is the greatest gift that can be bestowed on us.

“Without it, even the riches of the Indies become wearisome and cannot be enjoyed; there cannot be complete happiness where good health is lacking.

“And beauty – of form as well as face – goes hand in hand with health. That is why so many women now are so keenly interested in the subject of health.”

One of the advertisers supporting the feature was a national organisation called the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, which was founded in 1930 and is today known as the Fitness League.

Its next series of classes was to begin shortly at the Co-operative Hall in East Street.

Other advertisers included Swindon College, where many health and fitness courses were run, and Western Cycles in Victoria Road and Cricklade Road. The advertising feature mentioned cycling as an excellent way of keeping fit.

It also extolled the virtues of bread, milk and meat as health foods. We said of meat: “To the manual worker and the brain worker alike its body-building and energy-producing qualities are equally necessary and important.”

Unsurprisingly, the list of advertisers also included BJ Martin the Cromwell Street butcher, Titchener’s bakery of Regent Street and the Co-op dairy. McIlroy’s proclaimed itself the official suppliers of “…regulation health and beauty outfits.”

It’s likely that the true motivation of the campaign went beyond the desire to make us healthier and happier. In Germany mass militarisation was under way.

Millions of men there underwent vigorous training, and organisations such as the Hitler Youth and the Band of German Maidens instructed younger people.

The British Government could hardly have been blamed for nervousness.