In Postcardland, my only home

[Karmann Ghiaman]

November and another somewhat depressing Winter coming up, so let's cheer ourselves up a bit with another fix of naff postcard nostalgia with particular reference to the shitty cars, buses and lorries of yesteryear unwittingly enhancing those innocent views.

 

We'll begin with the UK, and here's one Mother sent home from Gatwick Airport in 1992:

 

 

She was obviously worried that the cats wouldn't be properly looked after during her holiday abroad, so it contains instructions like Don't forget to feed Velma - she's afraid of Ricky. The Heart of the British Empire still looks pretty much like that 20 years later with crude neon signs advertising American, Australian and Japanese crap, edible & otherwise. Open-top buses must've been a particularly bad investment in the Soggy 'Summer' we've just had. (Spot the Parceline truck for bonus points.)

 

Very nice scalloped-edge extra width postcard from Worthing:

 

 

This was never sent. I'm guessing it's about 1952 from the cars? Does anybody know Worthing or have any more recent images? Never been there myself.

 

Superb Felpham:

 

 

From the C reg on that beautiful Rover it's after '65. Estate Agent is probably still there and will no doubt survive longer than the church. Take another deep breath: Green Shield Stamps! It was sent on 'Tuesday' to Alma, James, Mary & Graham, posted by Roy in Bognor Regis. Since the stamp is a blue 3P, some late September in the early '70s, though unfortunately exact year hasn't come out in the unclear frank.

 

 

Glorious yellow lines here. This one was sent to Mother in 1981 from 'M + B' and includes the interesting information that Thomas is getting his eye in on the fossil hunt.

 

This is in the town to which the above was sent:

 

 

I was there last weekend and that particular bit, St Aldate's, still looks pretty much the same, only with a lot more traffic. Tourist buses now clog the side with all that classic crud down it, and nobody ever parks a bike by leaning it on the kerb any more. When exactly did that cease?

 

Most excellent coach card:

 

 

Mary sent this to Alma in Burgess Hill in 1960-something, the exact year being just off the edge. But it's a purple 3d stamp if that's any help to you philatelists.

 

We now go over to Wales:

 

 

Brown Capri and Lyons Maid lorry bring mysterious beauty to this otherwise depressing scene. Norah & Edward sent it to Mr & Mrs Gunston in August 1980.

 

(This one from Apartheid South Africa is included here simply because it has an even scarier statue than the preacher man erected in Bala above:

 

 

Actually it was posted in 1998, so perhaps post-Apartheid S. Africa, though Grahamstown is definitely for colonial settlers, not Blix!)

 

Back to Wales:

 

 

A veritable Paradise of Shite sent to James from Aunty C, July 20th 1973.

 

That was a very good year...

 

Here is Seatoller, Borrowdale, where someone is having a very interesting driving lesson:

 

 

Susan may have chosen that particular image with reference to the purple Mini, identical to one that Mother (to whom it was sent) once had.

 

Some kind of scene from a nightmare in Withernsea, Humberside (is that right?):

 

 

It was sent to Mr & Mrs Anker back home and Bernard includes some useful anoracky information: We arrived here safely after quite a good journey. Left Leicester at 9 a m and had two stops on the way. Distance was 140 miles.

 

Before crossing over to the Continent, a quick glimpse of the Dumfries bus station way back in 1947:

 

 

M.M.B. wrote to Mother (who was still simply Miss F. Hedley then of course): Here's rather a pretty p.c. to add to your collection! Little did they realise what joy it would bring to millions seventy years later, thanks to the invention of computers, the Internet, autoshite, etc.

 

Coming up: The Low Countries, with special reference to the Pissing Boy of Brussels...

 

In the meantime, please post your own cards, recollections of the above places.

[DSdriver]

Yeh! Keep 'em coming. I've looked out the window and I'm staying in.

[trigger]

Just Google Street viewed a coupe of those, Worthing sea front has changed a bit, the hotel is now a bar and most of the building look to have been repolaced with more modern ones.

 

Bonus shite content too. http://goo.gl/maps/jvz0N

 

Also Felpham is the same, that is still a estate agents too!.

 

http://goo.gl/maps/BrHwM

[chaseracer]

Back to Wales:

 

 

A veritable Paradise of Shite sent to James from Aunty C, July 20th 1973...

Ah, "the Queen of North Wales resorts", the scene of my early childhood...

 

It's been a while, but I think the overgrown bit next to the yellow Victor is now Theatr Cymru, and about 200m up from where the Splittie's parked is where my grandma's hotel used to be. Is that a Wyvern or a Singer Hunter with the bonnet up?

[HillmanImp]

Whilst it is good for us now, I cant believe that the photographers at the time could not wait for the lorries to move before they took the photos.

 

This one in particular:

 

 

Its like its the focal point of the whole picture....

 

Sating that, it looks a lot better than it does these days.

 

[HillmanImp]

And here is Bala:

 

 

[pompei]

Withernsea is a grim place. Makes Royston Vasey look like San Tropez. The lighthouse is perhaps the main/only attraction* cheekily situated amongst terraced housing around half a mile inland...

 

I can only imagine the disappointment faced by those hapless travellers from Leicester upon reaching this dreadful destination.

[shedvan]

 

This doesn't look too different either:

 

 

But holy cow for a lighthouse its miles* from the sea! I thought proximity to the shore was one of the key requirements for a lighthouse?

 

 

I guess Withernsea must be really flat?

 

 

 

 

 

 

*actual distances may vary

[Cavcraft]

Brilliant, keep 'em coming please.

 

Bala is a fairly grim place too. I went through there once about 6.30am and some bloke stepped right out in front of my 7.5 tonner and flicked the Vs as I slammed the brakes on. I got out and legged him for a bit but he was just a blur.

[Andrew353w]

 

Superb Felpham:

 

 

From the C reg on that beautiful Rover it's after '65. Estate Agent is probably still there and will no doubt survive longer than the church. Take another deep breath: Green Shield Stamps! It was sent on 'Tuesday' to Alma, James, Mary & Graham, posted by Roy in Bognor Regis. Since the stamp is a blue 3P, some late September in the early '70s, though unfortunately exact year hasn't come out in the unclear frank.

 

[NOTE TO SELF: READ THREADS PROPERLY!!!}

 

Alright, confession time... I read this thread rather quickly & thought the above was a card from Feltham, near Heathrow Airport! Suffice it to say this delightful village looks NOTHING like Feltham! Lovely to see an extinct brand of petrol, too!

[retrogeezer]

That Burger King and then the Dunkin Donuts (by the Parceline van) were our first stops after getting the train into London as 14/15 year olds..cheers for posting these, I look out for car related old postcards now!

 

[michiel]

Cool stuff. Llandudno a month ago:

 

 

None of the cars in the card were there, very dissapointing.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Thank you gentlemen, especialy for the Google Earth equivalents. As Tennyson almost said trigger, Men may come and men may go, but Estate Agents go on forever.

 

Time to cross over to Holland...

 

 

Quite recent one from Amsterdam. Shitehawks will know, especially thanks to the great michiel, that this is the northern European capital of Carcrap. Here is the Herengracht with surprisingly little parked along it, though they're pretty good, including our first Beetle. Mrs KGman & I have been on that boat, or one very similar, in grey drizzle when it was hard to know where the canal ended and the sky began. A bit of a downer, especially just after Anne Frank's house.

 

The now obligatory Valkenburg:

 

 

It is a rare day when you can wear shades in the Netherlands (assuming that those ladies aren't blind). Good crud in background, including another Kafer. Here's the castle there, but only a gay little pink scooter for shite:

 

 

Another dubious shot of Valkenburg:

 

 

Excellent work by the photographer who has made sure that even a lovely Medieval garden corner includes at least one car!

 

Back to Amsterdam for this classic sent in the summer of '82:

 

 

Dear Mrs Anker & Wilf, This is the Hotel, where Arthur & I are staying at Amsterdam. The arrow is where he is sharing a bedroom with Mr Green and I'm with a lady named Miss Thompson, all the news when I see you love from Mrs Webster & Arthur.

 

No naughty shennanigans there then.

[michiel]

Ooh, a Honda Quintet, Fiat Ritmo, Datsun 120 etc. in Amsterdam. Just wonderful.

 

Hotel Keur still exists (http://www.hotelkeur.nl/) but it is in fact in Zandvoort!

[Junkman]

 

I don't believe it. A Borgward Isabella!

[Spottedlaurel]

Have an alternative view of Llandudno from a card I picked up just the other day:

 

The Promenade, Llandudno postcard circa 1970 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

[Karmann Ghiaman]

The Borgward is an essential part of the nightmare, Junkman... Maybe the photographer waited for it?

 

Yes michiel, the card does say Zandvoort, where Grand Prix action used to take place among the dunes back in the days of real racing cars. It was Mrs Webster who said it was in Amsterdam. She posted it from Haarlem.

 

Talking of Dutch hotels:

 

 

The Inntel in Rotterdam. Mrs Webster & Arthur didn't stay here, card was never sent by anyone, though it comes from the Heanor goldmine, nuggets from which have appeared here before. Realised that the lady who bought those got them to keep for herself, so she probably stayed here. Most, if not all, of the Valkenburg ones were hers. It also dawned on me that when they were only dated it wasn't because she suddenly decided not to send them - it was to remind herself of the day she was there. Anyway.

 

Cross into Belgium; it's Antwerp:

 

 

Again, not sent, but an earlier age. Includes one of those big Citroens the Gestapo used to like. This was addressed as far as Mr A Hartwell, 72 Fallowfield... nothing more. So, Mr Hartwell, if you're still alive reading this website, that's the card Mrs Webster & Arthur would've sent 30 years ago if they'd remembered your address.

 

The castle, also at Antwerp and it's obviously Elvis Night:

 

 

Is that two-tone, white-walled beauty an Oxford?

 

 

Six different parts of Bruges, yellow shite included.

 

 

The main Car Park, I mean Market Square, there.

 

And this is the ugly architecture and proud cars of Ghent:

 

 

Tomorrow: The Capital of Belgium & the Pissing Boy Special...

[Mash]

Nice shot of the Triumph 1300s in that pic SL.

 

Withernsea is indeed a shithole, but then most of the places along the East Riding coast that haven't already fallen in the sea are pretty grim, Tunstall where the caravan site is for example. I live about 15 miles from With and I wouldn't want to be any nearer - it's nice where I am but starts to get a bit bleak the further out to Hicksville you go!!

[Micrashed]

Ernest, the slowest Milkman in the whole of Christendom.

 

Clifton St. Lytham (I'd have been working there when this was taken)

[Junkman]

The castle, also at Antwerp and it's obviously Elvis Night:

 

 

Is that two-tone, white-walled beauty an Oxford?

 

 

It's a 1955 Ford Fairlane.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Ford Fairlane explains it. The Elvis fans' dresses were too early for the 1962 Oxford.

 

At last we come to:

 

 

Brussels, home of the EU, Smurfs, sprouts... lots of things the British adore.

 

One of the most culturally significant sites there is Mannekin-Pis, or the small Urinating Boy as it's known in English. This card speaks for itself and explains everything:

 

 

(Obviously such filth would have been taken away and smashed to bits along with Jimmy Savile's tombstone if it was in a morally upright country like Engerland.)

 

Earlier version:

 

 

Reproduction interdite!

 

 

This one has him in various 'amusing' costumes. It is said that the good burghers of Brussels were ready for either result at the nearby Battle of Waterloo and would have welcomed a victorious Napoleon just as much as they did the Duke of Wellington and his Prussian allies. Whether the French would have been amused or offended by Piddleboy in their Imperial Guard uniform remains a subject of debate amongst historians.

[jonny69]

Another excellent postcard thread!

 

and nobody ever parks a bike by leaning it on the kerb any more. When exactly did that cease?

 

I still do that, but generally only when I'm standing right next to my bike - otherwise they have a habit of getting stolen

[barrett]

Looks like that might be a Fiat 600 Vignalina in the far left of that Brussels car park shot, unless anyone (Vin?) has any better ideas

[Junkman]

A Chevrolet Corvair Monza, too. Next to it is what looks like a Lancia Flaminia coupe.

The van to the far right is a Ford Transit FK1250 being passed by a black Opel Kapitän PL.

 

Why was everything nicer and better in the good old days?

[chaseracer]

I like the mk3 Zephyr in Valkenburg. Did they sell well in the Low Countries...?

[Karmann Ghiaman]

I like the mk3 Zephyr in Valkenburg. Did they sell well in the Low Countries...?

 

Could be Arthur & Mrs Webster's. We have definitely seen adventurous Brits as far south as Venice in these old cards.

 

Anyway, we'll always have this place:

 

 

Not quite so much traffic in 1947 when my late father sent that to his mother: the price of food here makes you gasp; but the cheapness of drink does a lot to make up for it, and I think I can manage the 10 days all right. The officers' club unfortunately closed last year. He wasn't in the army any more, but presumably could have got some of his cheap drink there if it had still been going.

 

Another of Maigret's Paris, the Madeleine church, sent by 'Barbara' to my Mother (long before she met the man from the last card) the following year:

 

 

Thought there was an ancient jalopy there, but it's more likely a Jeep.

 

Also from France, never sent, St Malo:

 

 

Plenty o'shite and boats, rather better parked, there. All three above French cards have the obligatory corner signature: yvon, Raymon and Jos.

 

Aerial shot of Blois in which some gallic car chaos is forever preserved just off centre:

 

 

And before der Vaterland we'll quickly nip west to Santander...

 

 

...and a sinister midday Segovia in 1955 with some of Franco's secret police just arriving to drag someone away from that bar for one of those disappearances they used to arrange.

 

[michiel]

Excellent thread.

 

I like the mk3 Zephyr in Valkenburg. Did they sell well in the Low Countries...?

 

Dunno, but here are a few from 'my' archive. Just noticed that GM-51-32 features 3 times, but they sold at least 7.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Karmann Ghiaman]

More fantastic Dutch scenes from michiel's Netherland of Dreams.

 

Well, here we have a couple of monochrome cards from '60s Berlin:

 

 

Mother sent this to my sister at our childhood home, frank illegible, but it's a 30 Pfennig stamp and no need for a postcode, so I'm guessing about 1967.

 

 

This was sent to Mother at the same address, from a German friend, Monika. The Gedaechtniskirche as modified by Arthur Harris. With a cross on top, that erection must be the new bell tower, but it looks more like a multistorey carpark.

 

Another weird dreamscape from Munich:

 

 

The Glyptothek (no, I don't know either. Google it). Looks like they even waited for the clouds, and the cars and people are superb - not posed or pasted I hope.

 

These German photographers are proving much too artistic & sophisticated. Let's get outa there and back to a Place of Naffness...

 

 

Down the windey road in the yellow coaches...

 

 

...and through the Gotthard Pass! Beer-quaffin', thigh-slappin' Goatherd'n'Gretel stuff.

 

If you don't look too closely at your atlas, then we could stay here for a few days:

 

 

It only has '14th - 21st' written on the back, so that was presumably their base for that week. They probably visited this limpid pool:

 

 

No shite in sight, but some horribly healthy Austrian picnickers to relish. (I imagine the water to be bloody freezing, which may be why none of them are actually in it.)

 

Has anybody got any bad taste German cards? There must be something vulgar out there.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

A lake the other side of the Alps in Italy now: Morcote on Lake Maggiore:

 

 

Nice cars will help to date that unsent one. Also on Lake Maggiore, Baveno:

 

 

Maybe the photographer could have thought that out a bit better? Lack of shite in the above is amply made up for in this veritable shrine to the small cruddy car:

 

 

It's just called 'Votive Temple' and it's on the Venice Lido. Inexplicable & superb.

 

We come to Rome where cars are never far from classical bottoms of various sizes:

 

 

Piazza Navona. Did you know that there are more obelisks in Rome than in Egypt? The Roman Emperors collected them. Some uninformed idiots recently said that we should return Cleopatra's Needle to the Egyptians because it was 'stolen' by 'imperialism'. Well, duh (I wrote to the papers) it was a gift to Queen Victoria from the Egyptians (and very difficult to move, too). So it would be a bit ungrateful to force the useless object back on them, wouldn't it? People's ignorance of history is really, really scary.

 

Got that off my chest. The Basilica of St Justina in Padua:

 

 

Excellent classic cars (no bottoms) & buildings in Montepulciano:

 

 

Sent to my parents in 1962. I didn't notice Jesus hiding in this below for a while (thought it was where a wet cat had sat on the card or something):

 

 

Yes, it is from Turin and that must be where they keep the Holy Sheet.

 

Turin 1515:

 

Eeeh, Leonardo, we gotta nold blanket. What cha'gonna do, eh?

 

Painta-da-Jesus? Then you gotta da Shroud, eh?

 

Yeah. Shut-uppa-da-face.

 

At least someone knows some history.

[michiel]

Lovely Aurelia in the Montepulciano photo (what is the convertible though?) and I spy another Vignale Fiat 600 inbetween the Roman arses...