It’s 70 years today that the United Kingdom declared war on Hitler’s Germany, and World War 2 began.

Germany had invaded Poland and as the UK and France had a pact defensive pact with the Pole’s, at 1100 on September 3rd 1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war against Nazi Germany.

6 years of war followed, and the UK was threatened by Nazi occupation reaching a peak in 1941. The threat was so great that the British Government even commissioned an anonymous civil servant who was entrusted with finding the slogan for a propaganda poster intended to comfort and inspire the people of Britain should the massed armies of Nazi Germany ever cross the Channel.

The result? The inspirational ‘Keep Calm & Carry on’ poster, printed in a run of 2.5 million.

Now, 70 years later in these credit crunch, eco-crisis, war sticken times the original posters’ message portrays a certain British character, an outlook and that stiff upper lip that seems to have been lost in recent times. And now we have the t-shirt based on the original poster.

The t-shirt message has been sported by well known faces from David Beckham to Katie Price to Top Gears’ James May, such is the strength of the iconic type face and slogan.

Available from 8Ball in regular fit t-shirts or our new vintage range, in both mens and womens tees.

While today sees us remembering the start of 6 years of misery, death and destruction it also commemorates the unifying spirit that saw true British grit…worth getting a t-shirt for!