Raise a toast to the humble picture-postcard photographers of a century ago. They seemed to spend their lives producing decorative trinkets - bearing inane greetings - sent from aunt to nephew, friend to friend, and lover to lover. What they actually did was preserve the past better than any porticoed museum. They stopped time and … Continue reading The Picture Postcard
Tag: Vintage Postcards
Locarno Conference
When world leaders arrive at one of the countless international conferences they seem to attend these days, they might pause for a quick Facebook post or an X tweet, but they are unlikely to pose for, and add their signatures to, a commemorative picture postcard. This card from my collection reflects a different world. Unfortunately, … Continue reading Locarno Conference
I Was Nearly Kilt Last Night
"We got away for a few days. The weather is lovely. I was nearly kilt last night climbing hills. This is just at the top where we live". A brief explanation of the message on this old postcard may be necessary. The word "kilt" is a northern expression meaning "killed". The hill in question is Salterhebble … Continue reading I Was Nearly Kilt Last Night
A 1907 Poke
A "Facebook Poke" is defined as "a digital nudge or virtual greeting used to get a friend's attention." The equivalent 120 years ago was a postcard - sent, as it happens, to my great-uncle Fowler Beanland - with the slightly ambiguous message, "What Ho." The advantage of the 1907 poke is that we can compare … Continue reading A 1907 Poke
It Was Never So
This image comes from a 120 year old picture postcard of Halifax, and it is about as fake as any modern AI generated concoction. The colours have been painted in with all the skill of an arthritic canary, and the figures appear to have been randomly stuck on with haste as well as paste. Such … Continue reading It Was Never So
A Nice Collection
This postcard was sent from Budapest to North Wales 126 years ago, during the height of the early twentieth-century postcard-collecting boom. It dates from the period before the postcard backs were divided to accommodate both the address and the message, so any message had to be squeezed onto the front of the card. No problem … Continue reading A Nice Collection
Postcard Law
There should be a law stating that everyone has to send a picture postcard full of idle chitchat at least once a year. Forget your WhatsApps and your Emails, I'm talking about old-fashioned cards with pictures on one side and meaningless gossip on the other. Then, 120 years from now, there will be a treasure … Continue reading Postcard Law
Memory Road
This is a scene I am so familiar with that I can almost physically feel its presence just by looking at a photograph. And it doesn't matter that it was taken half a century before I crossed this road - on my way to school, to the bus, to visit friends - or that many … Continue reading Memory Road
Tram Shelter On Broadway
Back in the first decade of the twentieth century, picture postcards were the Facebook Posts of their day, and an almost endless supply of images was created so they could have messages attached to them, stamps stuck to them, and postcard albums filled with them. Imagine the excitement in Rochdale when a new picture of … Continue reading Tram Shelter On Broadway
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