"I am pleased to say we are getting on very well. We spent Friday night at Ipswich and last night here. Hope you are well. Kind regards, Wilfred" 119 years later, the message could nearly be the same. Kind regards, Alan

I must have been taken around Bradford's old Kirkgate Market when I was a small child, and I became reacquainted with it during lunchtime strolls around the city when I worked there in the late 1960s. It always appeared larger, darker, and more complex than the Halifax market I was familiar with. During the 1970s … Continue reading Market Memories

Wanting a suitable illustration for the 1st of May, I turned to my collection of political vintage postcard and find a fine portrait of Philip Snowden MP. Snowden was as full of contradictions as a chocolate teapot - converted to socialism after researching a speech he was due to make on the evils of socialism, … Continue reading Political Contradictions

Those who are familiar with Skipton today will instantly recognise this scene from a vintage postcard. The streets were perhaps a little wider then, the shops a little neater, and I wouldn't advise anyone to stand in the middle of the road these days. The postcard was sent to my great uncle, Fowler Beanland, from … Continue reading Skipton High Street

This image of Doncaster's Corn Exchange is taken from a Vintage Postcard in my collection. The only thing written on the card is a single date - November 8th 1905. That was the day Alfred Buchi was granted a patent for his invention of a turbocharger, the day London was beset by a thick fog, … Continue reading 8th November 1905

I miss picture postcards: that unique combination of image and words and that alignment of the public picture and the private message. They have survived a century or more and provide us with a bookmark for all our history and for all our yesterdays. This one - featuring the Scottish town of Alexandria - was … Continue reading In Praise Of Picture Postcards