I like postcards. I always send people postcards when I’m on holiday because I think it’s nice to get something through your door, whilst you’re working like a dog, from someone doing nuffin’ on a sunny beach. I find this really helps strengthen relationships. I have a bit of a thing for old postcards too, just like I have a thing for old doors, old books, and manhole covers. I’m easy to please, me. 

So, imagine my delight when I spied a friend going through some old postcards and notes. 

“Well, I want those,” I said.

“You can have them.”

“Thank you.”

What a straightforward and easy transaction. People should learn from this. If all my interactions were this amenable I’d be a lot nicer natured. 

Sepia Speaks

All things sepia are just pleasant to look at, aren’t they? Soft. Seductive. Just like old black and white photos that have that green tinge. Nostalgic aura eminates. That’s art, that is.

Anyway, let’s have a gander at what we’ve got here in my mitten, shall we? 

“Do I Intrude? “ asks the lady illustrated at the top of this post. Apparently this pin up celebrated the ideal Edwardian woman: gentle, vulnerable and tantalisingly desirable. Just like the women of today…

We don’t do it posh round these parts 

Look at these delightful ladies having a bit of a saucy dip at Palm Beach! Palm Beach, you say? Well, not on your nelly, my friend. This image from 1926 was a short train ride from London’s Waterloo to the New Thames resort at Hampton Court. Staged to entice bathing beauties with very odd inflatables and questionable swimming hats. I don’t know what that woman is doing standing next to fiddly Fred but I think she is the inspiration for all caped superheroes.

Let’s Go To the Pictures!

London 1955. People queue for ‘2/4d’ seats to go and see Ain’t Misbehavin’ featuring Piper Laurie and Rory Calhoun. At this point there were over 4,000 cinemas in the UK with 20 million people going every week. Now we can’t afford to go because the tickets are more expensive than an Easy-Jet flight to Malaga. 

Posing in me Pants

“Why do you always have to go at the front, Marge? You think you’re the bees knees, don’t you?! Why, I don’t even think that bathing suit is entirely flattering.”

“Oh do be quiet, Betty. Your unruly mop of hair is an eyesore to the viewer. And stop pushing my shoulder down, I’m trying to get a decent breast lift.”

July 1927 at the sunny Isle of Man. Eight girls pose in their a la mode bathing suits near the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. This is the closest people got to exotic, living on an island in the Irish sea.  If only they’d been able to fly to Malaga. 

Boys Will Be Boys

“Oi! Come ‘ere ya little scallywag!”

Not a sight you would see in this day and age without it hitting the headlines. 

London 1926. Illicit bathers at the Serpentine, Hyde Park are chased away by a crazed female police officer with a very long cane and a very long dress.

The lake later became an official swimming place known as Lansbury’s Lido where people could pretend they were on some exotic holiday because they couldn’t afford to go to Malaga and Thomas Cook were years off inventing the package holiday. 

What a lot of Funicular!

This past weekend I went on another visit to Whitby in the blustery NE of England where I went on a funiculee funicular! This is where I live the postcard.

The tramway at Saltburn Cliff, Saltburn, is the oldest operational water-balanced funicular in the UK.  The funicular replaced a previous dodgy timber hoist that was made to lower people from the cliff to the beach and pier. The 120ft high wooden construction was held together by guy ropes and the cage held 20 people at a time, each charged a halfpenny. This contraption was condemned as unsafe in 1883 after 13 years and in 1884 this marvellous funicular was opened. 

But how does this genius Victorian contraption work, Jules? 

There are two cars running on parallel tracks. Each one is fitted with 1500 litre water tanks. The car at the top of the 71% incline has its tank filled with water until it overbalances the weight of the car 120 ft below. Then the miracle happens and as one descends the other rises.  Once they have swapped places the water is re-pumped and it starts again. There’s a man with a brake at the top who told me they never run out of rain water, and two men at the bottom taking your halfpenny which now equates to £1.60.

After this fascinating  experience I went for an ice-cream and stood freezing my arse off in 3 °C, being whipped by a blustery north wind and thanking God I wasn’t wearing one of those silly bathing suits.