Back in those Edwardian times, one of the main attractions of postcards was the fact that the sender didn’t have to spend very much time in composing a long drawn out letter and could get away with a short précis of their ‘news’. Many postcard users had various forms of personal shorthand or codings, which were only intelligible between the sender and the recipient.
Seemingly, not everybody was happy with the situation. There would, at times, be expressions of concern in the press with the Glasgow Evening News proffering: ‘In ten years Europe will be buried beneath picture postcards.’ Others suggested that the informal written styles to be found on postcards could threaten ‘standards’. The Times proposed that some people found the use of postcards as something of an insult to the recipient and one of these, James Douglas, suggested that there were others who regarded postcards as ‘vulgar and only fit for tradesmen’. On another occasion, somebody suggested that ‘The picture postcard carries rudeness to the fullest extremity.’
In the Edwardian era, you could send your postcard for just one halfpenny (in old money) and with up to five deliveries per day! Today’s price here in 2016? A minimum of 64p and it certainly wouldn’t be a same day delivery! How times change.
Notwithstanding the somewhat narrow view of some, there were certain areas of concern in legal terms as governments sought to keep in check the dissemination and distribution of information across national boundaries, which was understandable during the years leading up to the First World War. There are also references to legal cases where postcards, or at least the information they carried, were deemed to be libellous and/or defamatory. One example of this was reported by The Times on 20 May 1905 when a female music teacher by the name of Melita Macready, was charged with defamatory libel, having sent the principal of the Guildhall School of Music a postcard saying – ‘You old rogue, villain and liar. You old coward. Why don’t you fight?’ Macready was committed for trial!
Despite all the huffing and puffing from various folk, postcards, with their halfpenny stamp (as opposed to one penny for a letter), an army of postmen and five or more local deliveries per day in urban areas (with the last one sometimes being as late as 9.30 pm), were an amazingly fast method of communication and social networking in the early twentieth century; the equivalent of the ’phone call, twitter posting or text messages of today. You would not only get cards from people on holiday but, due to the speed of the service, you could actually send cards to them in return while they were still away. And for sure, it certainly helped spread fashion trends around the country astonishingly quickly. Messages on the reverse tended, in the main, to be fairly mundane offerings with birthday and Christmas wishes, the weather, ‘Having a good time’ at holiday locations, the state of a person’s health and ‘See you soon’. There was a card I found once however, from a gentleman – possibly a soldier – named Edwin. Dated 26 November 1916, it was addressed to his lady love Nellie and featured a languid, reclining nude beauty on the front (and not wearing a hat on that particular occasion!); it was very steamy indeed for the time. He openly refers to a number of things in a rather formal and florid sort of way compared to today, and among them are his lady’s ‘Curves of grace’. In anticipation he writes:
The word Remembrance seems especially nice my dearest Nellie as a descriptive one to embrace all my thoughts of those two occasions I had the delight of seeing those curves of grace. Remembrance – what a word full of meaning in all ways not only the one under discussion.
I think for just a brief second or two on Sept 30th you looked so ravishingly nice – as the reverse portrays – though of course not to the same sweet advantage as this portrays the lady!!! You will see I had to purchase the card before learning its title – and am well pleased. It’s one so appropriate for the past as well as the future.
Remembrance of your promise of a next occasion fired with love and delight my heart towards you. As progress would suggest I will hope to see those (splendid) ‘C....s’ of yours still nicer than before.
I really wish to reserve the word splendid for the spring – when I want to be able to call them splendid for their curves and for their fullness.
If you will then allow, they shall not go away from my sight (then) without more salutations than they have heretofore received.
From your lover – Edwin.
As the card had no stamp and had not been franked, I assume he had rather wisely taken the decision to preserve the intimacy of the moment by sending it to Nellie inside a sealed envelope rather than giving the postman a field day and becoming the toast of the local sorting office! Edwin, obviously looking forward to even more intimate times to come and signing himself as ‘Your lover’ appears to have been a bit of a naughty lad!