We're all going on a(nother) Postcard Holiday

July 4, 2012

It's been such a depressing summer that the only way to prevent suicide seems to be more"virtual" nostalgic '70s Holidays through the magic of crap old postcards. Ventured across the border into Derbyshire the other day and struck a PPC Goldmine at the big antiques place in Heanor where my wife was looking for china cats.

No Derbyshire cards, but let's start back in Malmesbury (visited on our last imaginary tour) with this magnificent shot of the crud that was parked there one summer's day 10,000 years ago:

Is this now all Burger King, Tesco Express and charity shops?

Vaguely geographical - we will tour Britain before crossing over (in style!) to the Continent - it's north to...

A slightly earlier era than we had in Malmesbury, the cars subtly implying that those less well-off stay at the White Hart, more middle class at the Redesdale, Manor House for the toffs. It's everyone at the Travelodge (just off the bypass) nowadays no doubt.

Over to Sussex for another nice four-in-one card:

Interesting red shite (coloured-in Imp?) with the roads to itself and nice shiny double yellow lines opposite the Old Cottages. This wasn't sent far, since it only went to Worthing, having been posted in Chichester on Tuesday 29 September 1981. They have got a whole Play for Today into the message:

Thank you for yesterday! it was lovely to see you again. We arrived back in pouring rain but this morning the sun is shining and I'm feeling much better after a night's sleep - the first since we arrived! Only a small crisis while we were away some one choked on a piece of potato!!! We watched the Lifeboat go out on a rescue at 11pm! Muck Love P & L

Unfortunately that is one of the very few out of 50 bought with anything written on the back at all, though a pattern of trips abroad will, in due course, emerge. No cars in this one, but it should bring back many memories of staying in similar places with your parents:

Watch out for John Betjeman in the corner secretly filming everyone and adding 'Johnny Morris' style imaginary conversation/thoughts to the pictures. You can work out how many bedrooms they've crammed in upstairs from the windows visible in that tiny one, bottom right.

We'll nip over to Wales for this shot of Criccieth (quite near where some of my ancestors came from on the Lleyn Peninsular):

Whether the photographer was deliberately referencing Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World or not, I don't know...

Probably just a happy coincidence. Let's get outa there on this magnificent piece of flyin' floatin' shite:

And we are just in time to catch the Duke of Edinburgh (whatever happened to him?) racing this beautiful boat, Bloodhound, with Britannia wearing the Royal and White Ensigns and three Union Flags in the background!

This is #57 from the 60-card Queen and People series which one suspects must date from the 1977 Jubilee. (Don't know about you, but I thought it was a pathetic piece of churlishness when those greedy cheeseparing politicians took the Royal Yacht away from our Royal Family, making the whole country look mean & shabby. There are vague plans afoot to give them another ship; let's hope that happens. Well, that's what I think anyway.)

It's all getting horribly nautical, but at least you can spot roadshite on this glorious contraption which links 'St Mawes with Falmouth and saves a road journey of twenty miles':

PLEASE tell me it is still there and they HAVEN'T built a boring bridge!

While we're down in Cornwall, a quick trip to the sandy beach at Helford Passage:

We had childhood holidays in Cornwall in the '70s, so that could be me & my sister paddling there (though our Dad would never have worn those tight white trousers). Actually I'm probably the one in the inflatable, about to get swept out into the North Atlantic.

Here's a better way to go to sea, take your pick:

I know we had that 'Viking' boat in Pegell Bay before - did someone say it had died the death? It certainly will this 'summer' if it hasn't already rotted away. Was posted in Thanet, 22 September 1980 and includes Got Uncle Fred on the putting green but he just beat me.

Coming up: Abroad.

Please post your comments/memories/own pictures & arcane knowledge stirred by this cardy crud.

3,565 · July 4, 2012

4,095 · July 4, 2012

A GR9+ thread, KG

I lived in Malmesbury about 10 years ago and it looked identical apart from the cars. It's quite a historic town and all the shops are in the old buildings. They were gift shops and local businesses like butchers and bakers, so I'd probably* wager that it's not turned into a clone high street of Starbucks, Tesco, Pizza Express and charity shops like everywhere else. I don't remember there being a knocking shop there.

*hopefully

July 4, 2012

http://www.falriver.co.uk/getting-about ... arry-ferry

July 4, 2012

It's all getting horribly nautical, but at least you can spot roadshite on this glorious contraption which links 'St Mawes with Falmouth and saves a road journey of twenty miles':

PLEASE tell me it is still there and they HAVEN'T built a boring bridge!

I went on this a couple of years back and believe it is still operating. It's absolutely brilliant, the most awesomely shite method of crossing a river - you are driving along a country lane and suddenly the road stops and you are on the ferry and time seems to have gone back at least 50 years. Almost worth driving to Cornwall just to go back and forth on it!

10,871 · July 4, 2012

This is where I live...

...it is shite.

14,388 · July 4, 2012

Very enjoyable KG. I should let you scan-in and put captions to the big bundle of them I have, many of them East European and somewhat Catholic sent to someone who seems to have ended up here.

The KHF looks pretty big compared to the one we used several times at Fowey in Cornwall.

Can't remember if I have that same Moreton-in-Marsh card, or one that has a full-size version of one of those images. It's certainly familiar.

This is one of my favourites, possibly posted here before but with a sad tinge of desperation in its message (and no mention of the Stellar, which really is the highlight):

Old Postcard - Southwold, Suffolk inc. Hyundai Stellar by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Old Postcard - Southwold, Suffolk by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

And if I may add one or two more destinations to your tour:

Pipes & Drums in Edinburgh old postcard, late 1960s? by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Can't imagine they'd leave that Cortina there nowadays, it'd be considered some sort of terrorist threat.

Camborne, Cornwall old postcard late 1970s? by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Main Street, Helston, Cornwall old postcard late 1970s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

More from Cornwall.

Marine Terrace and Castle, Criccieth old postcard early 1970s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Criccieth again, as you seem to like it there.

The Promenade Rhyl old postcard, early-mid 1980s? by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Excitingly high levels of Datsun content here in Rhyl.

Reeth, Swaledale old postcard early 1980s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Pleasingly car-dominated scene in Reeth.

Rotten Row, Southport old postcard 1960s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Rotten Row, Southport old postcard 1970s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Floral Hall and New Theatre, Southport old postcard 1970s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

And finally from the UK, a trio from sunny Southport.

Old Postcard - Jersey Airport by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

We'll board what more knowledgeable people than I have told me is a Vickers Viscount and head east...

Knorzerbau, Mannheim old postcard 1953 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Sanatorium Franken Bad Steben old postcard 1977 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Bruhlsche Terrasse, Dresden old postcard, early 1970s? by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Olomouc, Czech Republic old postcard, early 1970s? by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

I have plenty more of these post-wat German/East European cards.

6,997 · July 4, 2012

If you took the top-right pic in Moreton in Marsh these days you'd get a Tesco in shot.

In fact, Messrs Google did just that.

6,997 · July 4, 2012

Actually, this one's a bit better.

Tesco is just behind the Network Rail van.

Sorry, I don't know why I'm obsessed with Tesco.

July 5, 2012

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gentlemen! Most relieved to learn that the Pegwell Bay Hugin boat survives, and the KHF. Why they haven't yet featured in Coast or The One Show remains a mystery. And thanks for the cards: Jersey Airport, complete with Vickers Viscount, a particular gem to me in my Retro Aviation anorak. And it's nice to know that Tesco's are getting into Google, if not old postcards. Didn't Morrisons used to be tiny and only in the Southwest? I seem to remember a logo of a sort of rather satisfied-looking paunchy smily man with his arms folded, standing beside his sheepishly-grinning wife. And when those two started appearing on small 'supermarkets' beyond Devizes we kids knew that we were 'nearly there', sort of.

We'll go over to Ostend:

1950s monochrome with scalloped edges which I have tried to bring out with special black background, no expense spared. Ostend has romantic memories for me because, aged 17, I spent a night on a bench at the station snuggling up to a sexy little Dutch girl. Needless to say, when dawn came she was going on one train to Holland and I had to go on another and stay with German friends in Bremen. Nowadays we would have swapped Facebook details and mobile numbers and been in touch forever afterwards, but in that century you had to exchange ADDRESSES and, worse! your parents' home phone numbers. So I let her go. Probably a chain-smoking divorcee in Venlo with a VW Fox and three grown-up children today. Such is life.

Excellent Euroshite in this picture of the main carpark in Bruges:

That is the Paleis van het Provinciaal Bestuur/Hotel du Gouvernment Provincial, i.e. the Council House behind the carpark. Another shot of a corner of Bruges:

They give this in Flemish (Groene Rei), French (Quai Vert) and German (Gruener Kai), but have rather feebly given the 'English' version as The "Quai Vert" -! If you look at what's parked on the far left you will see why this card is particularly dear to me.

Here's the carpark in nearby Ypres:

These buildings were very attractive to High Explosive shells from both sides in 1914. Some mug recently bought a crude watercolour of the place in ruins signed 'A. Hitler, Ypres'. However much you point out that he would have called it Ieper (or even Iepern), they still can't see that it's an obvious fake. The card, from Brussels, has also got 'Printed in E.E.C.' on the back. More about that place, and that organisation, to follow soon...

132,369 · July 5, 2012

This is where I live...

...it is shite.

That is surely about the worse postcard ever and all the better for it. If ever a card said 'don't bother coming here, this is as good as it gets' then that's is right there.

2.4k · July 5, 2012

Same Avenger in both these shots, the photographer's perhaps?

2,259 · July 5, 2012

It's all getting horribly nautical, but at least you can spot roadshite on this glorious contraption which links 'St Mawes with Falmouth and saves a road journey of twenty miles':

PLEASE tell me it is still there and they HAVEN'T built a boring bridge!

We were there earlier this summer, during which time both the current Mrs. H and myself became very brown (brown, how brown?) as we had the best weather of the summer so far. The ferry is still operating and is sign-posted from the local roads, too.

Here's a garage from St. Mawes:

14,388 · July 5, 2012

Same Avenger in both these shots, the photographer's perhaps?

Top spotting! How had I never noticed that? Both are Bamforth cards, so you're probably right. Given how he/she parked it so prominently I now feel a quest coming on, to see if it appears in any others...

DVLA says it lasted until 1987 (EYC404J), by which time they have it listed as being black.

1.3k · July 5, 2012

Enjoyed those a lot! As a kid, I spent every Whitsun in Criccieth from about 1968 to 1980.We had a sprite 400 caravan that we plonked on Plymouth Farm Caravan Site at the top of the hill leading into the town coming from Portmadoc. Happy days! I remember my sister and I were given Ã‚Â£1 pocket money to spend for the week on whatever we liked. I never bought sweets or ice-creams but always saved mine til the last day to buy a Matchbox or Dinky car that I would have spotted at the beginning of the holiday.

I also remember getting quite excited at seeing an orange Austin 1300 on the first day of the new 'M' plate in 1973 so we must have gone in the summer that year aswell. And in 1977, cos we were there when Elvis died.

Thinking back, it wasn't very adventurous going to the same place each year was it. What a boring bunch of tossers.

July 5, 2012

That is surely about the worse postcard ever and all the better for it. If ever a card said 'don't bother coming here, this is as good as it gets' then that's is right there.

Cav he should feel lucky he's not in Kegworth just down the road. There is tyre tracks on the house roofs from the aircraft. Can you knock out a Kegworth one for comparison barefoot?

July 6, 2012

Took me a while, but I think the Castle Donnington one is a well constructed piss-take...

Talking of taking urine samples, here's the Little Piddling Lad that the Belgians find so hilarious:

Most of the people are showing fairly obvious disappointment now that they've located this vulgar 'attraction'. The woman with the two little girls is saying 'Don't worry, dears. The ones you get to use will be much bigger than that.'

Hope it's not too OT, but a rich seam within this particular Postcard Goldmine was the following three from the 1958 Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles - the Frogs' Pavilion:

Taken down afterwards and reassembled in Paris as the Pompidou Centre. (Note ski lift to nowhere, London has one of those too now).

The Soviet Pavilion:

Da, every worker in Russia live in house like this. And to complete the set, scoring an Expo Hat Trick...

Yes! The British Government Pavilion. They have got a Henry Moore outside the front there which looks very like my mother pretending to enjoy being on a picnic. Worth Ã‚Â£7.5m. Stolen and sold, netting Ã‚Â£1,250 for happy scrap metal thieves. (Theft of the memorial to that little boy killed by the brave IRA in Warrington really was the end, though we can only charitably assume that the thieves cannot read English...)

With nothing written on the backs, these cards were probably collected as souvenirs taken home from someone's trips abroad. When they died bemused relatives threw them out - and some mug came along and paid good money for the collection. Another landmark building in Brussels (which is full of them):

And you think you've got problems with corrosion, imagine the rust on this. When I was a small child in the '60s, often shown pictures of this thing and already knew then that it was crap. Aerial view does bring out its grotesque size, however.

We cannot leave Brussels without a visit to The Buildings of the European Community:

Since the title of this card has to be written on the back in six languages, it immediately raises questions about the 'community' bit, but still. And every country in it is full of people, and newspapers, that blame everything that ever goes wrong on having to be in an organisation with foreigners...

Thought this was Eastern Europe at first, but in fact it is over the border in Holland:

The Rotonde in Venlo. Eat your heart out Castle Donington, we have a huge roundabout.

While visiting places in Holland beginning with a 'V' one must not ignore the highest point in the whole country, Valkenburg:

This photographer has made a slightly better effort at getting the castle in, plus some magnificent Dutch carshite and several fashionable young ladies of the era:

Superb.

4,095 · July 6, 2012

Excellent, keep them coming, I'm really enjoying this thread

July 6, 2012

This section we'll nip up to Scandinavia (well, one town in Norway), then back down to France, followed by Spain and Italy.

Two cards from Bergen, both of which feature fine shite, carefully included by the photographer, and both of which have suffered some sort of peculiar osmosis, perhaps from being left out in the sun/rain? together once upon a time:

Never mind the Johanneskirken, look at that yellow Transit stealing the show! This one is called Sunset at the Wharf, also featuring some samples of Norwegian crud:

Now it's down to a place in the Vosges region of France called Saint-Die (no, I hadn't ever heard of it either and I got a 'C' in O-Level Geography):

Three French beauties parading across the bridge. Presumably the caravan belongs to the roundabout man who hasn't started up for the day yet; it looks like very early in the morning (assuming the camera was pointing towards the south). Mind you, the clock says 10, so either (a) it's stopped, or ( it's a Sunday. There again, the shops are all open with their awnings out. OK, the roundabout man is doing something unspeakable with his daughter in the caravan. Les kiddies will just have to wait for their rides.

This is getting too silly for words; time to ourselves go south, to Nice:

I went on an exchange visit here in 1974, so sent quite a few cards like this one myself back in historical times. It is Le Promenade des Anglais, and of course you feel quite chuffed that their most famous street is basically named after US (heh, heh). Obviously the zebra crossings are purely decorative. Similar shot, looking the other way:

Young KG Boy stayed up in those hills in a market garden with spectacular views of the town below, especially by night when, at dinner on the veranda, you could see aircraft coming in to the airport. Went there from Heathrow in an Air France Caravelle, now thought of as a romantic classic with which to impress other aviation buffs. Monsieur Sivieri (who left most of the actual work on their smallholding to his wife) had a Peugeot 304 and was quite a good driver for a Frenchman (definitely a lot better than Professeur Jacques a couple of years later who drove like Merde around Bordeaux). And the card version of a night view, with that brilliant trick of a long exposure so the lights go all stringy & funny:

When Danielle was with us in England we took her to Blenheim Palace (not very tactful now that I come to think about it) and Boughton-on-the-Water. You can't go wrong with the Cotswolds, can you?

Anyway, over to Spain. A place called Santander which I thought was a bank, but still:

Whereas this is the 'Grand Casino' there is a truly shitty Renault 5 bringing pefection to the foreground of the card. I like the way he hasn't bothered to get the very top of the tower in, too. Full marks to Joaquin Bedia there.

This is Hotel Solana, Arinsal, Andorra:

You can be sure that cars have been down there into the rocky drink on many a Sangrilla-fuelled night.

A place called Santillana del Mar in the Cantabria region:

In English that's rather mysteriously labelled Rio Street rear end the Collegiate. The peasant is showing an unhealthy interest in one of the rear ends the Cows. If I was there we'd be planning to visit that church and would have to walk through cowshit in flipflops and would probably slip. Then Mrs KG would have a good laugh.

Cross back over the Gulf of Lyons to Italy and Riva del Garda:

More watershite here. Of course I rejected dozens of cards they bought in Venice, because you're never going to see any crap cars there. Here, however, is Hotel Miramare on the Lido...

...and it looks like the Brits have made it!

3,549 · July 6, 2012

The 'Hugin',but now a replica,is still at Pegwell Bay.

Brian.

As I grew up five miles from Cliffsend/Pegwell Bay in the 1980s, I'm old enough to remember the original incarnation of the ship. And the adjacent Hoverport

July 7, 2012

Hovercraft are just so coolly naff, aren't they? They were too good for reality, but will live forever in Postcard World.

We go to Basel in the Land of the Switzers:

Early morning and they are setting up the market, safe in their neutral knowledge that nobody will be dropping HE on their Rathaus/Hotel de Ville/Palazzo municipale. Interesting Aviation Fact about Basel: it's airport is across the border in France.

Another exciting day dawns in Woergl in Tirol:

Someone actually got as far as writing Tues. 9th Aug. on this, but then must have decided that Keith & Pamela were not, in fact, worthy of a card. It also says Nachdruck verboten! in that charming German language, so good for barking orders at people in.

Classic black-&-white Innsbruck:

They have marked in the cable car - um - cables, up there.

And we come to Vienna, home of Midge Ure and Rigsby's cat:

Oh yes, and Mozart, Freud and the Hapsburg Empire, etc. Our postcard collectors were there for high culture because they not only got the Staatsoper...

...but also the Volksoper:

What happens here? Is it "Ach! I am ruined, Sophia, RUINED!" "But, Johann, your opera is a brilliant success, zey are completely sold out at ze operahaus..." "Ja, ja, but it is only ze Volksoper! Never ze Staatsoper! I tell you, Sophia, ze Hapsburgs hate me."

Over to the Eastern Bloc now where they are anxious to show us that they have (even worse) autoshite in Budapest:

And some in front of St Istvan's Balilica, too:

Almost a lesson in how not to take a photograph. Why didn't he just GET ANOTHER JOB? (The man in jeans was almost certainly put there deliberately to show how Rock'n'Roll Communist Hungary really was.)

7,216 · July 7, 2012

Long may it continue to rain here - this thread is the better than any holiday I've had in recent years!

Just confirmed for myself - that there Vienna Volksoper featured in a Bond movie- thought it was familiar.

Until I saw the full name of the KHFferry, I thought it was being run by an early incarnation of The Ancients of Mu Mu.

14,388 · July 7, 2012

Interesting junction in Earlston:

Thorn Street, Earlston postcard circa 1980/81 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Elsewhere in Scotland, and the sun is still shining:

Main St Callandar by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Best not to wonder what this old chap might be doing in Hitchin:

Sun St Hitchin by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Stripy street furniture:

The Square, St Annes on Sea old postcard 1960s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Bit of variety in Dublin, good showing of OJC's:

College Green, Dublin old postcard 1980s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

We're all going on a(nother) Postcard Holiday

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