When a postcard becomes a placard

For the best part of a year, I've been involved in a project called Save Our Placards. At the second biggest demonstration ever in the UK on 26 March 2011, a group of us asked people how they wanted the Museum of London to remember the march against government spending cuts.

Photo credit: Guardian

It was an epic project. In the end, more than 400 people donated their placards, flags and costumes. Enough for an exhibition at the museum a week later.

Watching the Occupy protests this week has brought back a lot of great memories of the March For The Alternative. Of the woman who gave me her "protest umbrella" on Piccadilly, even though it was starting to rain.  Of seeing a man walk the length of Hyde Park to give us his TAX NOT AXE axe. And of nervously leaving a minibus packed full of angry cardboard joy on a London street overnight.

As if on cue Liza, a formidable campaigner from Vermont, sent me this today ... a postcard-come-placard. I love what Liza has done - twisting the standard lines on old postcards. We expect nostalgia, yet we get a protestor's sting. Very clever. Thank you Liza.

And a big hello to my placard partners in crime (Mark Teh, Hafiz Nasir, Svein Moxvold and Lolo Galindo) who are now spread across the globe. Wish you were here....?

Post-It-ese

A trend for 2011 has been the re-emergence of the post-it. This week, at Apple stores across the world, it was the low-tech post-it note that people used to pay tribute to the hi-tech visionary Steve Jobs. 

Photo credit: Twitter user @lautenbach

In London over the summer, we had the Peckham Peace Wall after the riots. People expressed their frustration, shock and optimism on notes stuck to a boarded-up discount shop.

Photo credit: Flickr user Celie

In Paris, there was even La guerre des Post-Its. Office workers competed over who could make the best art from the sticky notes.

Photo credit: postitwar.com

What is it about the post-it note that makes it popular now? 

Low-tech. Physical. Mobile. Playful. Free from rules of grammar and etiquette. Anonymous.  I guess all of these. 

Post-Its were massively useful for me over the summer as I ordered my thoughts on old postcards for my dissertation. Not just because they were easy to move about but because they made me engage with the form - the short, written message. 

There's more in this... any thoughts?

Lost in admiration

At a fair, most collectors will come and go from a dealer in a matter of minutes. “Any new churches today, Brian?” “Don’t think so, but you’re welcome to have a look."

They know what they want. And a dealer's cards will be ordered by popular collecting categories to make searching easy. It might be a certain place or artist that a collector is after, or pictures of a famous Edwardian actor or politician.

I'll typically stay hunched over one or two stalls the entire time, until my eyes tire.

A good message could be in any box.

While staying in one position can be exhausting, the advantage is you get to eavesdrop on passing trade...

Dealer 1 (holding his friend’s card): I’ve never seen such a good gypsy card. I mean the expressions on their faces…

Dealer 2: I found another one as well which was pretty amazing. And that was £80. How many times have I ever had great photos of gypsies like that in the last 40 years?

Dealer 1: Who does get them?

Dealer 2: Jeremy, not very often.

Dealer 1: Who does get them? They’re just not there. No, no.

Dealer 2: I won’t see another card like that for 20 years. And I won’t be around in another 20 years. I only got them because I would pay whatever people ask for them which means you’re not making money. That’s the problem….

Dealer 1: A card like that will always appreciate in value…. I am lost in admiration for that one.

Before the 'back' was divided

I hope people enjoyed the documentary last week.

A few people have asked since seeing the programme what postcards looked like before the back was 'divided'.

You'll remember the modern card only arrived in 1902 after a German publisher (one F. Hartman) persuaded the Post Office to let him put a picture on the 'front' and then split the other side between message and address.

Well, here's an official card sent in 1875. That's 5 years after the postcard was introduced in the UK. It's much smaller than later cards and is printed in mauve. Only the address could be written on the side shown above, with the message restricted to the other.

You'll also see the stamp comes with the card. No need to buy one.

These cards were all made by De La Rue, the money printers. And incredibly, they were the only cards that could take advantage of the half penny rate for postcards.

De La Rue's monopoly was finally relaxed in 1894 after a campaign by the MP Henniker Heaton. After this, privately-published cards could be sent at the postcard rate. Go Henniker!

When something becomes so familiar, like the form of the postcard, it's easy to forget the people behind it. Yet how the card looks today was not inevitable. It needed people to change things. And in a curious way, the anonymity of Hartman and Heaton today is testament  to the totality of their triumphs.

The Picture Postcard World of Nigel Walmsley

Edwardian postcards make it onto the small screen on Thursday with The Picture Postcard World of Nigel Walmsley.

Jake Hayes and the rest of the BBC4 team did a great job unpacking their history. Messrs Tuck, Hartmann, Gladstone and all the other postcard heroes would be very proud. And I really enjoyed getting the chance to tell the stories of Dorothy and Miss Emerson.

As well as helping out on the documentary, I've been busy finishing my dissertation on the mysteries of old cards. Thanks for everyone's support. Now that it's handed in (phew!) I'll be writing up bits on Postcardese. Really looking forward to hearing what people think.

As I wrote it I realised the importance of this card from Meg to M. That word on the second line, "tonight", has had an impact on how I see all pre-WW1 cards.

Franked in Putney at 10.45am, Meg was so sure of the Edwardian postal service she was able to plan a trip to the theatre that very evening:

"H and I are going to see the "Girl on the Stage" tonight, would you care to join us..."

With one word the card reveals how postcards were not like they are now. As the documentary explains, rather than being a sign of not caring about the timeliness of a message, they could be sent and received within hours.

And because of this, they become such curious objects. On the one hand foreign, signifying a way of life that has disappeared. But on the other, eerily prescient of our instant means of communication today.

Anyway, I really hope you enjoy the programme. It will be on BBC iPlayer for a few weeks if you miss it on Thursday.

And if you are new to Postcardese, sign up for the newsletter by entering your email in the box on the right hand side.

Or follow @postcardese on Twitter. It's like a 21st century version of the postcard ;)

The price is part of the card

When I first started collecting, I used to rub out the prices dealers wrote on cards. I don't any more.

I guess I had wanted to restore the cards to how they'd originally looked.

Now, the price mark is part of what I'm buying. It signifies the card's present - that it has a value today. And also that it has passed through many hands since it was first sent.

A week is a long time in postcards

Phew. That was quite a week.

It is going to take some time digest it all I think. But I wanted to put some photos up quickly for those who couldn't make the talks... and also for those who did.

Talking at the British Postal Museum & Archive

First up, confirmation that the cards people wrote on Thursday have been sent.

              

At the end of the talk at the BPMA, three volunteers from the audience (Anna, Fran and Axel) wrote cards using some of the Edwardian techniques for writing postcards that we'd discussed earlier in the night.

The volunteers agreed to enter into a deal.While the BPMA paid for the card and the stamp and they could send the card to whoever they wanted - I would read out the cards at the end of the evening to the rest of the audience.The idea was to explore the open form of the postcard, in that the message can be read by all en route to its destination.

Anna wrote a gingerbread recipe to her friend in Dulwich, Fran a message to her future child (I got it in the end, Fran!) and Axel sent a very poignant note to her grandma. These cards are now in the possession of the Royal Mail.

Once again, thanks to Laura and Alison at the BPMA for inviting me along to speak!

Touring at Waterstone's

I must admit I'm still on something of a high from Saturday's 'postcard tour' at the Gower St branch of Waterstone's. The people that came along were fantastic. Loads of great observations about the cards. In fact the event became a long chat as much as a tour.

We walked around the store taking in the secondhand section, the philosophy and art departments, the fiction area and then back to the secondhand section for some biscuits and jam tarts. And all through the medium of different postcards. So for example, in the fiction department we discussed how postcards have been used as plot devices by authors like E. M. Forster.

Lots to think about. I'm sure the experience will be a source of inspiration for a long time.

But now for the very very exciting bit.

Above are the photos of the cards people got me to write using Edwardian postcardese. In exchange for a free card and free stamp, people gave up part of their privacy by dictating messages to me to write to whoever they wanted. (To stop the slideshow you can just click on the album to have a closer look at some of the cards. Names of addressees have been smudged for data protection...)

Some great messages emerged as you can see. Lots of codes, lots of tilted stamps. And somewhat surreally of course, they are all in the same scrawling handwriting learnt at Longton County Primary school circa 1984.

At the same time, though, there was a serious aspect to all this. Jamming Edwardian postcard writing with our very modern concern for what is public and what is private, made for interesting exchanges. One person described sitting down in the alcove of the store where we were based as "stepping into the confessional". That felt spot on. It was fascinating not just to see what emerged in the messages, but also how people engaged with the 'stranger scribe' scenario.


Thanks again to everyone who came along, and to Jo and Emma for letting me do the tour in the store. Yes, let's do another one in the Autumn!


Playing with the form


Finally, this week has made me realise how much I enjoy this card sent to an R. Wade in 1903, a year after the postcard's reverse side was split to allow people to write both a message and an address on that side. It's a great example of how playing with the form of something, whether it be 'the postcard' or 'the talk', can be a lot of fun.