It's 1971. Get in your Dad's car. we're going for a drive...

[Karmann Ghiaman]

...and buying PICTURE POSTCARDS on the way.

 

Let's start in Derby:

 

 

Irongate. The woman's bottom on the left is clearly the focal point of this picture, but small quantities of classic autoshite are visible if you can tear your eyes away and look to the right. Pub is the Jorrocks. Woolwich, Woolworths, National Westminster Bank, Carvery, Ladbrokes, etc. will guarantee waves of nostalgia, pangs of homesickness.

 

Another one from Derby:

 

 

When I was going through the box at Chesterfield market (in the same county) last week, a man nearby said he was 'only looking for buses'. Yet he showed no interest in this! Timewaster. Well, I am very happy with it. Most real bus and Ford fans should be having orgasms by now. Michael Caine is lost beneath the H. Samuel clock, ominously trapped at the weird time of 11.45.

 

 

We jump into the Marina and try to zoom away outa there, heading for the Peak District. Farmer Jarge is just arriving, coming the other way in his lovely Land Rover. Note crumpled safety barrier on the right. We seem trapped forever at a quarter to twelve...

 

Escaped and made it to Hartington:

 

 

Unfortunately this photographer waited for our target, crap cars, to be out of shot, though a few beauties are discernable. Morris have left their mark on this one. Salmon pink Oxford is most striking - did they do them in that shade, or is it just the poor quality of the card?

 

 

Ah, that's better; the parish pump and carpark, that's what we're looking for. Could that be the same green Mini Minor as in the previous card? It's already turning classic in this magnificently hideous picture which includes delicious Frog & Scandishite.

 

More soon - please send in your comments, particularly if you know any of the places visited, and especially if you holidayed there in that Golden Age...

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Driving much further west we come to:

 

 

Yes, it is Castleton on the left, Winnat's Pass and Mam Tor. Caravanistas should appreciate the middle one which seems to date from the days when you could just plonk your Sprite down wherever you liked and get a brew on.

 

We will now cross over to the Lincolnshire coast, going to the

 

 

Sorry there are no cars in these, but Mrs KG Man used to go here with her parents and I hope they will bring back happy memories to some of you Shitemeisters. Why are they flying the flag of India? Not many miners were Indians, but the mystery will be solved below...

 

 

Yes, the WAITERS were Indians. My wife says she remembers eating here and thinking it was 'like a palace'. She also remembers that the Butlins holiday campers in Skeggy looked down on the Miners ('they're just LOWER class, but we're LOWER MIDDLE class, forsooth'). I went for this one as a BORING POSTCARD:

 

 

For some reason it reminds me of Bruce Willis's apartment where John Travolta died in Pulp Fiction. There is something compelling about the man in the brown coat, perhaps a hapless gardener hoping against hope that those sad plants will make a bit more of an effort? Or is he simply a holidaymaker who has been sent back to their room to fetch some forgotten item? The women seem to be cleaning staff. (Abandoned baby on the left.)

 

Back to fantastic autoshite in Llandudno:

 

 

AND NONE OF THE PEOPLE REALISED WHAT TREASURES SURROUNDED THEM! It was a good day for white cars. This has got to be one of the best cards ever.

[boobydoo]

Ahhh! To spend a week in Llandudno in the late sixties...bliss!!! No intrusive mobile phones, no shifty youths in hoodies. I even think you'd manage to spend the week without hearing any foul language, unlike now. And of course, a chance to gawp at those wonderful old cars.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Also in Wales, Aberdaron:

 

 

The photographer certainly took some trouble selecting this particular view. What are they waiting for? The '70s to end? Spar, Lyons Maid; it's all there. We used to buy sort of parchmenty envelopes with 'Your Fortune' predicted inside, only available at the seaside for some reason. No doubt the internet provides the modern equivalent.

 

Continuing around the coast:

 

 

This is from an earlier age and was in fact sent to Mr & Mrs Gibb in Stamford (which we will visit shortly) in June 1959. H & C. Jackson were 'Having a nice time good weather & good food, hope you are well.' God was in Heaven and All Right with the World. I doubt if Pixieland is still there.

 

Superb shite and SCALLOPED EDGES here:

 

 

There were a lot of Maxis back in the day. Herald in the middle and a Merc (280?) approaching. The Mini on the left appears to have some sort of badge or advertising on it; any explanation for that? Classic signage too.

 

Back on the Norfolk coast, this is St Margaret's Plain, Ipswich:

 

 

Woodbines, Walls, two bikes, but sadly no shite. Unusual to be able to read newspaper billboards in a ppc and it looks to me like a Sunday morning. Surreally this was posted as a First Day of Issue for the 3p Tutankhamun stamp, 26 April 1972 'Love Mummy & Daddy'. Presumably Tut bought hisNews of the World at the Tudor shop in Ipswich?

 

More fine signs in this card FULL O'SHITE and well worth 20p just for the word 'Minchinhampton':

 

 

Think I'll get a Zephyr to match me cardie...

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Ahhh! To spend a week in Llandudno in the late sixties...bliss!!! No intrusive mobile phones, no shifty youths in hoodies. I even think you'd manage to spend the week without hearing any foul language, unlike now. And of course, a chance to gawp at those wonderful old cars.

 

We'll have to make do with the postcard I'm afraid.

 

British people have certainly changed. I expect everyone's been enjoying Dominic Seabrook's* 1970s programmes on TV, much delectible shite spotting being possible. Couldn't help noticing that '70s football hooligans were all slim with long hair. Modern equivalent is a fat red-faced git shaved bald, like a kind of mercenary out of the Wars of the Fucking Roses (possibly the same person as thin longhair 40 years later?) As for mobile phones: you wonder what some people did before they were invented? Harumph.

 

(* Tony Soprano lookalike)

[retrogeezer]

top stuff, love these old postcards. There is a Boring Postcards book available just in case you weren't aware.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... ds&x=0&y=0

[DSdriver]

I seem to recall that a lot of the photos used in early coloured postcards were retouched with coloured dyes to make them brighter which is why there are so many matching cars and sweaters.

[Father Ted]

Preston Urinal:

 

Friargate - now largely "pedestrianised" C*nt & A***hole is now a Wilkinsons. Maurice is a Costa Coffee.

 

The Ribble Bus side of the Urinal

 

Whilst visiting Preston, why not stop at the Byron Hotel...

[rover420]

The last time I was in Ipswich (yesterday) It was the county town of SUFFOLK

 

Us Ipswich boys dont take kindly to being told we live in Norfolk........lol

[Cavcraft]

What a brilliant thread! Might (traffic dependant) be going to Llandudno tomorrow as it's the 'Victorian weekend' I think and that's always a right laugh. To be fair, although very, very rarely go to the Welsh coast these days, Llandudno is precisely 27,000,000 times better than anywhere else on that part of the coast.

 

Right, sorry for the interruption, please carry on...

[eddyramrod]

What a brilliant thread!

 

If I was able to see any of KG's cards I might agree! The idea's good though, and I enjoyed Ted's Preston cards. The Byron, if it even still exists, is probably full of Russian prostitutes these days...

[Father Ted]

m0Ar brightly coloured cars in bits of preston you cant drive round any more....

 

 

Preston Docks, when you could still dump cars in it...

 

Enjoy Shopping for groovy clothes at St Georges..

 

Maybe purchase a push bicycle to see our lovely town...

Or a Cooker...

 

Preston, we have had running water since 1976 and fresh delivered milk since 1977

 

Preston - where we have not one, but TWO lanes on our motorway

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Thank you for your comments and more fine cards, that's the idea! I'm surprised nobody has yet said 'No, that's a 285 SC' or 'They were made by British Leyland in 1975', but no doubt such things will come. A bit worrired if eddyramrod can't see any pictures: I put them into ImageShack, then paste the Forum Code (URL) here into Autoshite. If it appears OK in the Preview, it gets posted. If there is a better way, please let me know. (Still trying to work out how exactly the biro they first gave me at primary school should be deployed, let alone computers.)

 

Ipswich - oh yes, Suffolk. Sorry, not very pleasant to be confused with Norfolk. No offence intended.

 

Stamford was promised, and here it is:

 

 

This is the Hospital of William Browne, Merchant in that historic town. I'm guessing that he was a Medieval Fat Cat who bought his way into Heaven (or at least cut Purgatory by a few million years) by paying for this place. I do like the way the photographer has made sure that several dodgy cars - and a van - are included to bring out the late perpendicular architectural features. At least he did manage to get the top of the weather vane in, but three paces to the right and he could have separated that flagpole from the tower... 'You missed composition classes? Congratulations, you're a professional postcard photographer.'

 

Another from Stamford, purchased there quite recently:

 

 

This shows that the tradition of including shitty traffic and the unsuspecting public lives on. I also appreciate the way he has made everything lean to the left, so you feel a bit sick looking at it. If he went to Pisa, he'd spend hours making sure that tower there came out straight.

 

Does anybody know Malmesbury, Wilts. ?

 

 

J. Arthur Dixon informs us that this is The Market Cross Built in the reign of Henry VII and used as a market shelter for country folk who brought their produce into town, but we are much more interested in Malcolm and Sylvia (whose yellow ensemble so perfectly sets off the sign to Cirencester). What has caught his eye? A handsome country folk lad approaching with his produce? But she drags him back to the Larches for another afternoon of what? Piano lessons? Kinky sex games? Tea & ginger cake? Take your pick. It happened in Malmesbury. And, oh yes, nice carpark.

 

Now we can go overseas in this fine vessel:

 

 

Back of the card informs us that this is MV Sarnia, sister ship of Caesarea and that they 'maintain a fast, one class service between the mainland and the Channel Islands'. Sadly, not in my Sealink book which featured here a few years ago! I'm guessing, however, that they operated out of Weymouth before Earl Godwin and Earl William took over? You could also go from Portsmouth on Earl Granville in the '70s. Have you noticed how 'one class service' always means Steerage for everybody? If RMS Titanic had been 'one class' she would still be going to & fro across the Atlantic.

 

Only foreign one from last week's haul at Chesterfield:

 

 

Some may recognise Innsbruck, nice scalloped edges. (We will draw a veil over the fact that Maria-Theresien Strasse was strewn with swastika banners a couple of decades earlier...) This one, posted 26/8/66 also has the perfect message:

 

Dear Geoffrey, Having a lovely time here in Austria. Food not very continental though - egg & chips last night! (hundreds of calories!) We have been to Liechtenstein & Oberammergau & to-morrow we are going in a cable-car up in the mountains. love Maureen.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

I expect Lord Byron stayed at that hotel named after him in Preston. They are certainly proud of the largest Bus Station in Christendom...

[Father Ted]

I expect Lord Byron stayed at that hotel named after him in Preston. They are certainly proud of the largest Bus Station in Christendom...

 

Yes indeed, we even use it for Sunday Worship and the occasional crucifixion.

 

[Rocket88]

.

 

Now we can go overseas in this fine vessel:

 

 

Back of the card informs us that this is MV Sarnia, sister ship of Caesarea and that they 'maintain a fast, one class service between the mainland and the Channel Islands'. Sadly, not in my Sealink book which featured here a few years ago! I'm guessing, however, that they operated out of Weymouth before Earl Godwin and Earl William took over? You could also go from Portsmouth on Earl Granville in the '70s. Have you noticed how 'one class service' always means Steerage for everybody? If RMS Titanic had been 'one class' she would still be going to & fro across the Atlantic.

 

I travelled many a knot in this lurching rustbucket, back in the days when we had a tourism industry. Youngsters in acrylic tank tops vomiting over the side, while Mum and Dad gets hammered on cheap booze in the bar. And fast it certainly wasn't, about a nine crossing from Weymouth.

[ruffgeezer]

...and buying PICTURE POSTCARDS on the way.

 

Let's start in Derby:

 

 

Irongate. The woman's bottom on the left is clearly the focal point of this picture...

 

Woman's bottom? I thought it was two badly parked Volkswagens...

[eddyramrod]

A bit worrired if eddyramrod can't see any pictures: I put them into ImageShack, then paste the Forum Code (URL) here into Autoshite. If it appears OK in the Preview, it gets posted. If there is a better way, please let me know.

 

Yes, so am I! It isn't just you, there are several whose pics I can't see. I can't be the only one, surely to goodness? But then there are many whose pics I can see.... I don't know what the answer is. I wish I did!

 

By the way.... in 1971 my dad had a ten-year-old 100E Popular, so we wouldn't have been going very far or fast!

[purplebargeken]

Nice, yet sad too. A reminder of a time when things didn't seem quite so shit.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Well, ruffgeezer, it is rare to find a good-looking woman in these sort of postcards. But I treasure this one from Porto...

 

 

...which, unusually, does include the town prozzie (tight black top, ditto white skirt and large handbag in the sunlight, just passing the end of the subway entrance). There is also a rather nice red K*rm*nn Ghi* parked on the right...

[chaseracer]

 

Ah, happy memories of the town of my very early childhood - then visiting the remaining grandparents in a series of Mini vans and Hillman Avengers!

 

My grandfather's on the war memorial: William Ernest Williams CGM, should you be strolling on the Prom and have a spare moment before continuing on to the pier, a Matt Monro concert in Happy Valley, or tea at the Grand.

 

The Capris, the Viva HB and the facelifted ADO16s place this at around 1970-ish, so sadly my grandma's bijou private 'otel is no longer able to welcome you, as Puffin Lodge was sold some years previously...

[chaseracer]

I seem to recall that a lot of the photos used in early coloured postcards were retouched with coloured dyes to make them brighter which is why there are so many matching cars and sweaters.

Good to know, because I don't ever recall seeing a Hillman Minx in that particular shade of babyshit brown - even in Nailsworth...