In my early days of postcard collecting, it felt to me as though hardened card enthusiasts seemed to look down on my ‘wants’. After all, who would be interested in this bottom of the market fancy hat stuff? Perhaps I was becoming a touch paranoid, but at postcard fairs I always seemed to get the impression that heads were turning in disdain and did I detect the odd knowing smile from other nearby collectors when they heard me ask the dealers for ‘Any Photographic Glamour?’ Likewise, it was not at all unusual for the odd dealer to hand me a bunch of nudes! In response I would pass them back immediately and say something like: For heaven’s sake, I was only looking for fully clothed ladies in big hats! ‘Honestly guv, nothing sinister’. Even today, all these years later, it is not uncommon for some dealers (perhaps with delusions of grandeur?) not even to bother stocking this type of card at all and, on occasion, one is smartly directed to the 50p box where all the dross is kept! Visiting French and continental dealers on the other hand, apparently innately appreciating the finer points of ladies fashion, seem very much more on the ball than us Anglo Saxons and my requests of ‘Avez-vous Les Modes?’ have often yielded great riches. Similarly, the countless hours spent trawling through literally hundreds of thousands of cards in some large hall or other around the country over the years, could, if you were lucky, prove to be time well spent and add a few more members to my family of Edwardian ‘girlfriends’. Those who have spent eons of their lives in the pastime of fishing will have a reasonable concept of what I mean!