It's that weird bloke with POSTCARDS again...

[Karmann Ghiaman]

As usual we will start off in that much misunderstood World City, London:

 

 

(It's near England). I reckon the flag and the Mini have been painted in on this one. Note cranes down on the river which shows it was in the days before they'd discovered Felixstowe. If you have a brother and an Uncle Richard under no circumstances let the latter take you here for a treat.

 

Hideous Flowerbeds series:

 

 

This was sent from Eastbourne in 1950-something.

 

The same a few years later and you can see that traffic congestion & parking problems are coming along nicely:

 

 

Have thought of posting some of these without saying where it is and seeing if anyone recognises the place...Would that be fun? Maybe one or two and we'll see how it goes. This one, though, speaks for itself:

 

 

 

 

Steve, aged about 10, sent it to Master James in July 1970: I am having a lovely time the weather is good, but it is raining on Tuesday. I wish you were here. See you on Saturday. They have got a Floral Clock, the Swannery and Sandsfoot Gardens there. Have these elaborate flowerbeds survived Tory cheeseparing? As a Council, do you close the Library or grass over the Floral Clock to make George Osbourn happy? You decide.

 

 

Seaton in Devon:

 

 

Olive & Arthur took an early holiday in May 1972 when it cost a Two-and-a-half-Pee pink to send a card: This is the life! all the time in the world - it's a lovely change. Mrs Capp sends her love and says 'how kind of you to arrange our wedding flowers'. She enjoyed the photographs. She was 89 the other day. Hope you are well. Interesting to reflect that when Mrs Capp was a little girl, General Gordon was holed up in Khartoum. They had Fuzzy-Wuzzies, we've got Al Qaida.

 

A very early one of that inland lighthouse at Southwold which caused much consternation in the last Postcard thread:

 

 

It may not have been too popular with whoever sent the card (signature illegible): This lighthouse is at the end of our road and flashes on and off when we are asleep.

 

Fast forward to 1980, the Main Gate, Cirencester Park:

 

 

Love from us all paid a massive 12p (admittedly 1st Class) to send this, adding a pretty good short story with useful statistical information to boot:

 

Middle Dunstbourne Sunday - 500 yr old cottage situated on 400 acre farm 1/2 ml from the road, we have a ford & river just outside. Rather basic here, very cold last night but with log fire & electric blankets we kept warm. This afternoon we went walking all over the fields lovely country, gathered up wood. There are bread rolls in freezer get some out & put in frig. [sic] See you Sat. aft.

 

I know this place in the Cotswolds well and think others will recognise and quickly identify it:

 

 

If you think the last one was detailed, Ray wrote a veritable fucking novel on the back of this. It does, however, include the exciting PS (walked over this bridge yesterday.) Makes a change from bungee jumping, sex on the beach & paragliding.

 

Back in Sussex (I think), another exotic, erotic day on the Strip in

 

 

Hope these are bringing back some happy memories. Plenty more to come, I struck gold in the market on Monday - £2 for the lot!

[face]

Excellent - keep them coming please!

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Did anybody get Boughton-on-the-Water there with the bridge?

 

Somewhere else I have been (bit further north), though not this particular St Nicholas Hotel:

 

 

Alma stayed here in July 1973 and gave excellent information: a lovely dinner (poached halibut & fresh peach melba)...Poured during night, grey skies this morning, sitting in lounge 8 am, breakfast 8.30 am Sundays (8 am tomorrow as we are off at 9 am)... Perhaps she was reassuring herself rather than imparting vital information to her relatives in distant Hampshire. Who knows?

 

Another hotel in the same place (on a card which reveals where it is, though many will have already guessed correctly):

 

 

This one was sent TO Alma 11 years earlier, and as you can see, Mum has marked her bedroom window. Nice Moggie parked there too (not Mum's, she came by coach).

 

 

Somewhere else we have had before, where some of us had been. Good British shite parked there, plus the ghost of my late father reading his Sunday Express at a rather awkward angle.

 

Somewhat more impressive beach at Studland Bay:

 

 

...and one nice piece o'shite!

 

 

Keep meaning to take my elderly mother to Northleach as everyone says it's so lovely and she lives in nearby Oxford. This was sent in that sacred year 1973 and contains a disturbing message: Trust Alma is as well as can be expected & that you are coping...

One more before tea:

 

 

No prizes for recognising that place. Mrs KG and I went there once and were pretty disappointed, though the Roman bits, visited on our last morning, were quite good. Most of the town doesn't look like these famous bits and we had a job finding a decent, reasonable-priced restaurant. Oh God, I'm starting to write postcards to the Shitehawks!

 

Coming up: MILF in a mini (the short skirt, not the car)...

[brickwall]

Quite beautiful - makes you actually want to visit those places.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

GR8 stuff!! Hurry up with the milf PLZ

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Your wish is my command, Mr. B:

 

 

Now you're probably thinking that was accidentally posted double, but in fact it's two different versions of the same card, The Sunken Gardens, Lee-on-Solent.

 

And the same person sent it twice, once in 1974 (3 & a half P), and the following year when postage had doubled to 7p. But, bloody Hell, it was worth sending:

 

 

That copper from Life on Mars has certainly spotted her...

 

ANYWAY, back to London:

 

 

I sometimes had driving lessons round here - when we could get out of Lewisham - remember turning left up at those houses and going down to Blackheath Village, an interesting, educational traffic nightmare, once or twice. The big building on the far left might be the Ranger's House, Greenwich Observatory and good views of London beyond that.

 

This was sent on a Tuesday in the early '80s, postmark smudged, but it cost 14p:

 

 

Aunty Alma was one of the recipients, so it looks like she got over the mysterious illness of '73. They had done Malmesbury & Cheltenham and hope to go to Tewkesbury & then Ross on Wye.

 

Back north for another place I know well:

 

 

Nice cars, looks like they were shoring up the Minster in those days. Pouring with rain when we left the hotel at 8.30 am this morning. [Although it's signed Mum, it's surely Alma again with her 8.30 am obsession] Just stopped to have a look at the Minster. On our way to Harrogate for lunch. We went and heard Max Jaffa and Jack Byfield last night. Steamer trip to our hotel this afternoon good job we have our umbrellas!

 

I don't know who Max J and J Byfield are/were - please enlighten.

 

Several vehicular beauties in this one:

 

 

Anybody know the town? Sure it won't have changed much, though the traffic will be much less attractive (and the pedestrians much fatter).

 

Further south:

 

 

If you are racking your brains over the last two, this one is labelled, so no problem:

 

 

Impville.

 

This is more difficult, could be anywhere back in the day with superb Wollies, RIP and M & S:

 

 

It is, in fact, Peterborough.

 

Last in this post (before we go abroad), my very, very favourite for MSC*:

 

 

What's wrong with hubcaps you dead 1970s Yorkshire motorists, you?

 

*Mega Shite Content

[Junkman]

I don't know who Max J and J Byfield are/were - please enlighten.

 

Absolute prime shite.

 

 

Several vehicular beauties in this one:

 

 

Anybody know the town?

 

Chester. And it's a paedofuggindestrian zone nowadays, so more congested than ever before:

 

 

Please, please show us more!

[Mr Lobster]

Excellent, more pls. I'm finding these strangely absorbing!

[pompei]

Loving the cards and the commentary - more please!

[Bobthebeard]

Loving the cards and the commentary - more please!

 

+1

That goes for me too. Reminds me of the family slide shows we used to have back in the 70's.

Fond memories.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Well done, Junkman That is certainly Chester, excellent Then & Now shot, thank you!

 

This one was Dorchester:

 

 

When I said 'abroad', meant to start with a couple of islands you don't need passports for. In this one at least Canberra can count as shipshite (and maybe Patricia? Looks a bit rusty), though United States, the old Queen Elizabeth II and France are all too slick:

 

 

Obviously those might just sweep past the IOW, but Janet & family, who posted the card from Freshwater in 1971 were stuck there like Patrick McGoohan: Having lovely holiday despite lack of sunshine, seen every beauty spot on the island (twice nearly)...Hope you are feeling better Alma... So they'd obviously been there a couple of hours.

 

One fantastic Ultrashite site which they might have enjoyed, despite lack of sunshine:

 

 

Osborn-Smith's Wax Museum! This was in Brading and they later changed the name to the Brading Experience, but I'm glad to say it was still absolute crap. Makes Madame Tussauds look like the Prado.

 

 

You are highly recommended to Google Osborn Smith or Brading Experience, a lot of good folk have posted pictures of many other woeful exhibits (actually the flying cat is one of the better ones). Did anybody have the great good fortune to go there? Sadly it is now no longer with us, the old house has been repainted a tasteful white and the knobby fibreglass giant removed...

[Cavcraft]

Brill stuff, as said please keep 'em coming.

 

Chester is partially pedestrianised now (in that picture) but you can drive through there at night. Or indeed daytime, if you tell the fat miserable bloke in the 'lodge' by the town hall that you are stopping at the Grosvenor Hotel (behind the white pillars to the right as you look towards Eastgate Clock) though he always gives you that knowing look when you do this in a horribly dirty old car that smells of cooking oil.

[Junkman]

You are highly recommended to Google Osborn Smith or Brading Experience, a lot of good folk have posted pictures of many other woeful exhibits (actually the flying cat is one of the better ones).

 

You couldn't be more right...

 

 

A clear 16 on the shite-O-meter.

[meggersdog]

Between 1970 and '75 as a child I lived on the I.o.W. infact in '72 we moved to Sandown.Brading is between Sandown and Shanklin so when ,as a six year old boy,I visited that waxworks place it was both scarey and horrible at the same time.

[Rusty Pelican]

I live just up the road from here , perhaps a recreation photo is in order with one of my current Imps , you can still park there IIRC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Karmann Ghiaman]

A very good trio from the Isle of Man:

 

 

Can't find that particular ship in my legendary Sealink book, though it seems to be in their livery. Anyone know?

 

 

Moggy again! Drive it up to the top of Snaefell. A friend of ours had one when they were still shite, not yet much-loved classics - he was a student in the early '80s. When we went out on the Yorkshire Moors the passengers sometimes had to get out and walk up some of the steeper bits while the Mog wheezed up at about the same speed.

 

 

Red Granada is a taxi, interesting Mini Learner there too. The flag looks horribly swastika-like, 'spose it would have saved the Nazis some sewing if they'd invaded.

 

Here is an island they DID invade:

 

 

Yes, it's St Helier. Nobody sent any of these, but that one has a good official printed caption: Seen from Fort Regent at night the capital of the holiday island takes on an exotic look. The bright lights of the many seafront hotels, its gaily lit bars and cabaret shows give it the character of a continental resort - and between the lines we read 'Don't worry. It's not foreign, it's British."

 

Now we really can go abroad, starting with this superb Skyline Greetings card:

 

 

All it says on the back is B.O.A.C. - V.C. 10 Jetliner and Tower Bridge, London, but that is the old Control Tower of the Queen's Building at Heathrow - I mean London Airport - on the left. Possibly the only airport card ever with no aeroplanes showing at the place... It has a sweet message: Dear Mum On Thursday we went to London airport and we bought ice-creams and an I spy book of aeroplanes. love from James (she probably worried about what exactly they did at 8.30 am, but still, a beauty from August 1967.)

 

Where shall we fly to? Oh no! It's HIM again:

 

 

More assorted Continental Merde, Ka-ka and Pee-pee tomorrow...

[Mr Lobster]

[/url]

 

Can't find that particular ship in my legendary Sealink book, though it seems to be in their livery. Anyone know?

 

Difficult, but possibly the Manx Maid? (1962-86)

 

[Cavcraft]

I reckon Junkman has had something of a brainwave here: Maybe people could post up to date pictures of places KG has added postcards of?

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Mr L might be right about the Manx Maid - my 1982 book only has Manx Viking in it, definitely not that. Manx Something anyhow.

 

Badly coloured-in Le Havre, featuring Place Clemenceau and Les Villas:

 

 

This classic Paris shot was sent by some French friends, Jean-Pierre and Annie-Chantal:

 

 

The weather is fine. It is hot. I hope you are good and happy. Me I am good and happy. I hope you are a good weather. This is "The Arc of Triumph in France. The publisher, Editions Greff then adds the excellent advice: Collectionnez les Cartes Postales!

 

In June 1983 John & Alaine sent this view of the parking arrangements at Propriano, Corsica:

 

 

They are getting there when it comes to detecting the unbearable irony of picture postcards: I don't think there are as many cars as in this picture on the whole island. It is so quiet and unspoilt and so green but hot sun. Peter is very well and very [illegible mystery] & has so little to do that he spends a lot of time with us. The villa is very homely & comfy so we are having a great holiday. I hope all's well with you & it's better weather & the election goes well.

 

Back in time to 1955 and over to this pleasant-looking watering hole in Kufstein, Austria:

 

 

That was in the days when you really could use a postcard like we use text messaging today: Dear Leslie On the journey home. Don't come to DOVER. We will ring you from somewhere as soon as we know situation and if we require you to come for us. Daddy.

 

Charming! (It is to be hoped that he was having a pleasant drink in the Tyrol with 'Mummy' rather than 'his Bit on the Side', but there you have it.)

[face]

[/url]

 

Can't find that particular ship in my legendary Sealink book, though it seems to be in their livery. Anyone know?

 

Difficult, but possibly the Manx Maid? (1962-86)

 

 

Another pic, from a similair perspective:

 

[carlo]

What a fantastic thread Mr KG, especially the captions; I could read them all day. There's something very poignant about reading these old messages.

[Junkman]

They are getting there when it comes to detecting the unbearable irony of picture postcards: I don't think there are as many cars as in this picture on the whole island. It is so quiet and unspoilt and so green but hot sun. Peter is very well and very [illegible mystery]...

 

HORNY.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Sent from Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1971:

 

 

I believe it is the place the car (more likely to be found without hubcaps in Thirsk marketplace) was named after.

 

Rigsby's cat:

 

 

The big W must be for Wien. Here's a very strange non-shite card labelled Wien - Donauturm Kaffee-Restaurant mit Blick auf UNO-City. Wonder if it revolves round and the Blick changes?

 

 

No date, but still-Communist Budapest with some shabby vehicles and plenty of parking space:

 

 

I do like the green Beetle which has ventured across the border.

 

Somewhere Mrs KG and I have been a few times, though this was sent by Dilys & Peter:

 

 

The Italians cleaned up the Dodecanese quite nicely when they ruled over it 1912 - 45. Unfortunately they hadn't yet got round to properly-flushing toilets, so the daily arsewipe (a simple pleasure in Blighty) can still be a bit of a nightmare in the Eastern Mediterranean.

 

This is a bit odd and it took a while to work out. Never sent, it says SERVICE STATION CALENDAR Picture for September/October Bungalows at Eiland:

 

 

Definitely not Holland. Then I noticed it was printed in Cape Town, so that explains it. One lovely Scandinavian babe there!

 

Classic San Francisco...

 

 

...Keith sent it to Jean in Northants in 1968, though I doubt if he went with flowers in his hair.

 

In the end one of the children seems to have had enough and gone off to the extremely exotic Caracas, Venezuela in '78. A magnificent view of the Autopista del Este:

 

 

Dear Mum, Dad & James, Enduring a cold spell in Caracas today - its only about 84 Degrees F! We had a terrible journey here taking 23 hrs instead of 9 so its a good job we have had the weekend to recover. I seem to have done a lot of walking - I spent yesterday morning in the Botanical Gardens seeing many exotic species of birds and today have been to a small national park up in the mountains. Tonight we're off to a barbecue at one of the big hotels so have had to eat little today in preperation. Tomorrow we're off to some vetineries at 4.30am in a private jet!

 

4.30am - eat your heart out Mum, with your mere '8.30 am' down the postcard years...

[Junkman]

...seeing many exotic species of birds

 

Yeah, I've seen those birds too when I was in Caracas.

 

Bloody brilliant! More please.

[brickwall]

The only thing missing out those postcards is James Bond sloping about

 

[Karmann Ghiaman]

 

The name's Pond... Amelia Pond.

[RichardMoss]

Wonderful stuff - most of those places are familiar to me and so is the VC10 (well, in my case the RAF's version).

[Karmann Ghiaman]

I went in a BOAC VC-10 in about 1966, but only as far as Paris. Then it was by Air Inter to Nimes (probably a Viscount? Everybody had them in those days).