Postcard pressure

Thought I'd share my latest video for Stamp & Coin Mart magazine.

I hope you appreciate the nifty editing. Three hours wading through iMovie's "Help" section proved time well spent in the end.

Found at a postcard fair in Preston, I first featured this card in a blog post back in June 2010.

Now, there are a couple more videos already in the can, but if there's a card on Postcardese you think I should include in a video do let me know.

Rest assured, Matt said the card did make it to the magazine's offices.

Instant Postcard Messaging

About a year ago I bought a new mobile phone - one of those fancy ones with a built-in camera. 

It is great. 

I love being able to send images to people and get instant reactions. I'll take a photo of some new glasses I've bought, say, and then send it to my mum. Within a minute she's texted back her thoughts.

How modern you think - how advanced we are. Well not exactly. Those bloomin' Edwardians were there first I'm afraid.

Take the pair of messages above. Gaddesden Place catches fire on 1 February 1905. Already by 18 February, our postcarder has a choice of cards to send showing what happened.

And that he/she decided to send two allows us to enjoy something unique.

Different cards sent on the same day, to the same address, to two brothers (?) about the same fire. This is the collecting triumph I referred to last week. By having both messages, the fire and the sending of the cards seem to become 3D.

 

PS My mum thought I was trying to look like Woody Allen. So cruel! Yet probably fair.

George - turn them over!

These things are a sort of diary upon which the English people have unconsciously recorded themselves. Their old-fashioned outlook, their graded snobberies, their mixture of bawdiness and hypocrisy, their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life, are all mirrored there.

George Orwell, taken from England Your England, 1941

Okay you've got one guess as to what Mr Orwell was writing about! Yup postcards. But specifically, the fronts of postcards.

A truly awesome quote don't you think?

But - and I tread carefully when crossing one of postcardings founding fathers - I reckon Orwell missed a trick. The cards themselves do reveal a lot about a society's psyche. But surely there is more to be found in the messages?

Take Jim's card to Maggie. Turning over the pastel image of a Winchester horizon, you find a real treat...

I love the addition of the "to all" in Jim's message. I'm thinking his interest in Maggie's nearest and dearest was a bit of an afterthought? And isn't there something beautiful in the way he's written Maggie's name. The 'M' is just a delight.

PS By the way, some good news Postcardesers. Postcardese was named this week's Best of Web by Culture Critic. Good work guys!

Postcard poetry

W.H. Auden said that a poem is never finished, only abandoned. For our Edwardian postcarders, poems weren't abandoned... they were sent.

I've put a couple of cards up recently containing poetry. Like the card to Miss Cameron in the lead up to the 1906 general election. And then there was last week's card which formed something of a haiku:

Noon. Please. Will meet you.

Love as ever, A. E. S..

Miss Case, New Parade.

While it may not be of Auden quality, this week's message to Robert is a cracking ditty - sensible advice for "when you court a love that's new".

1906: The Postcard Election

Much has been made of this year's election in the UK being driven by new media - YouTube, Twitter, Facebook...

But it's not the first to have been influenced by new forms of communication. In fact, parties at every election in modern times have grappled with new ways of getting their messages across - whether it was the first political broadcasts on TV in the 1950s or the rise of rolling news in the 90s.

In the year leading up to the February 1906 election in which Campbell Bannerman's Liberal Party won big, postcards were a key battleground.

An astounding 677 million postcards were sent in 1905. And politicians were keen to get in on this. Today's card shows an example of how.

Campbell-Bannerman had just taken over as PM from the "Balfourian gang" and was set to call an election, much to the delight of our anonymous author ("Hail, hail, Oh hail! Our glorious Banner-man.)

What hit me first about this card was that someone had taken the time to write a poem for a friend on the qualities of a political leader. I simply can't imagine anyone today writing a ditty about Glorious Gordon, Super Cam or the Mighty Clegg.

But there's also the quality of the communication.

New social media - for all their wonder - put a great emphasis on one-to-many communication. And with that, the impact of each message falls. Status updates, tweets and round robin emails are easy to ignore.

A one-to-one message like this though had to be taken seriously. Of course, it would be a while before Miss J H Cameron's opinion counted at the ballot box. But that's another story...