Wall decals: You may have come to associate inspirational quotes rendered in a chintzy typeface across a new build's kitchen wall as an entirely contemporary phenomena - but you would be wrong! So join me in this thread as we explore the secret history of the wall decal!

Believe it or not, wall decals actually originate with the Royal Navy during WWII. The first known instance was in March 1941 when the Captain of the newly commisioned Flower class corvette, HMS Vervain, ordered 'Make your dreams HAPPEN' to be painted on the fore turret.

Asked after the war as to what had inspired him, the ship's skipper remarked:

"Many of the lads were fed up with the image of Jack Tars being slaves to rum, the lash and sodomy. We just wanted a way to express our fun-loving, yet sensitive side."

When asked how he felt about this development, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound responded that "I really couldn't give a fig what twaddle they scrawl on their bloody ships. Providing it keeps them VD free, I don't care."

Given this tacit official sanction, the trend soon started to spread - first to other corvettes on escort duty in the North Atlantic:

Here's HMS Bluebell with her iconic 'Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful' bow script.

Then onto destroyers in the same role (as illustrated here by HMS Westcott's 'Good Vibes Only' Hedgehog battery).

Despite wide acceptance of the trend amongst naval circles, other services were less charitable in their views. Perhaps protesting a little too much, Field Marshal Montgomery stated that the decals were "Just another vile manifestation of the navy's proclivity for buggery."

In a similar vein, Air Marshal Harris damned the practice as "Just another form of mincing from those ponces in the navy. At least my boys put decent, wholesome, buxom gals on the side of their planes."

Neither was it held in much esteem by our trans-Atlantic allies with General Patton telling troops under his command that they should "Watch those limey bastards with their preverted ship slogans. They'll try and slip you the sneaky one-eye the minute your back is turned!"

Ultimately though, none of this matter as Churchill took a much more sanguine view:

"Providing it keeps the buggers from buggering other buggers, I say let them bloody well bugger on!"

And thus were the floodgates opened and the trend swept across the entire fleet like wildfire. Here's the ill-fated HMS Hood sporting her 'Dance Like No-One's Watching' conning tower script, just days prior to her destruction at the hands of the Bismark.

And here's HMS Illustrious with her flight deck emblazoned with a joyous 'Live - Laugh - Love'.

The craze soon found it's way to other Commonwealth navies too. Here's HMAS Canberra.

And a rather sassy one from HMNZS Achilles here...

The effects on RN moral were enormous, with ship's companies taking the slogans to heart and many of them getting them tattooed prominently.

In fact, contemporary reports describe how

"A night out in Old Portsmouth would not be complete unless you recieved a thumping at the hands of a sailor on shore leave with 'Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself' emblazoned across his chest."

Worried that it might be missing a trick, even the Kriegsmarine tried to get in on the game. Alas, it rapidily became clear that some of the original slogans' verve were lost in translation.

Alas, by the end of the war, the War Office began to crack down on Boat Quotes (as they were then known) and a systematic campaign to eradicate them was successfully undertaken. The golden age of naval chintz was at an end.

There is - however - a gruesome coda to this tale. While the War Office was able to stamp out any trace of boat quotes from the archives and enforced strict penalties on servicemen who spoke in favour of them, one branch of the Navy would no be cowed.

These were the Navy's surgeons, a group so affronted by the airbrushing of history that they took matters into their own hands.

The ghastly upshot of this is that many, many people from the mid-40's through to the 70s who underwent surgery at the hands of ex-Navy surgeons were often left with inspirational quotes inscribed on their vital organs.

And yet rarely is this spoken of when we cast our admiring eyes upon a beautifully rendered quote as it soars across a bang-on-trend grey living room wall. If only we had reckoned with the true cost of our folly.

Thank you for reading.

(First one to start a petition demanding the Navy reinstate Boat Quotes gets a a Megapoint btw)