Wish you were here again – postcards are back

Published on Wednesday 16 July 2008 22:04

IT IS a staple of the quintessentially British seaside holiday that appeared consigned to the sands of time.

But in an age when we are able to idly text "Wsh u wr hr!" to friends and family from far-flung beaches, the nation's holidaymakers are staying faithful to the humble postcard.

In news that will cheer deltiologists from Blackpool to the Black Isle, the Royal Mail has revealed it is processing around 135 million postcards every year, an increase of 30 million over just three years.

Long a canvas for images as saucy as they were stuffy, it had appeared that the advent of the mobile phone and internet cafe had put paid to the medium's questionable charms, with the number being sent declining over the turn of the decade. However, the Royal Mail says their resurgence shows people are returning to more intimate forms of correspondence, eschewing the convenience offered by technology for a more personal touch.

Brian Lund, editor of Picture Postcard Monthly, the leading magazine for postcard collectors – or deltiologists – said he hoped the upturn might herald a return to the glory days of the picture postcard in post-war Britain. He said: "We've noticed a sharp increase in the number of postcards being sent over the last few years.

"Back in the early 1990s, when the internet and mobile phones took over, the number of people sending postcards dropped for obvious reasons: sending a text is easier and cheaper.

"But now people are realising that a postcard is far more thoughtful than a text message or an e-mail, and that they can be displayed for all to see in the home.

"It's my hope that we will see a return to the glory days of the postcard in the 1950s, when sending one was all the fashion."

Mr Lund's dream may yet come to pass, but as the Royal Mail explained yesterday, a rise in the number of postcards being sent ought not to suggest that images of donkeys in straw hats, vistas of municipal council offices and saucy caricatures have become fashionable once more. Instead, the company suggests, the plethora of free postcards commonly found in cafes, cinemas and restaurants are being used.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said the figures disproved claims made in recent years by telecommunications companies that postcards were fading from view.

He said: "The significant increase over the past three years shows that postcards are perfectly compatible with other forms of communication, like text messaging and e-mails.

"It's an entirely different form of message. A postcard is a physical thing that can be kept or reread.

" It's a sign intended to show the recipient that the sender has put some thought and care and picked up a pen to write the message. It has a feel-good factor to it.

"A lot can be said about a person's personality from the card they have chosen and they offer everyone an opportunity to be creative."

He added: "There's obviously a factor at work with the sender, too. Postcards are still a great way of showing people where you have been. Sending a card to someone showing you are enjoying a holiday in the Caribbean has much more impact than sending them a text."

Boring images are top draw for collectors

THEY seem to say "be grateful you're elsewhere" rather than "wish you were here".

The postcard's eclectic and sometimes dubious history is not confined to risque images of buxom ladies. Particularly dull postcards have become something of a collectors' item. Here are a few examples of the very worst:

&#149 Redditch bus station, sadly no more, but which won the Worst Postcard in the World competition in 1991

&#149 1960s image of East Kilbride shopping centre, complete with overcrowded car park

&#149 Dounreay power station

&#149 Image of a boot worn by a boy who was struck by lightning

&#149 Fort William tourist information centre

&#149 A 1971 card depicting Queen's Road roundabout in Hertford

The Barnsley Public Hall Disaster of 1908

&#149 An out-of-focus image of the civic centre in Broxbourne

&#149 The main road in Kelsale, Suffolk

&#149 Knutsford Service Station on the M6

&#149 Luton Airport control tower

&#149 An underpass in Croydon

&#149 A line of caravans in Cornwall

&#149 A car park in Tonypandy, South Wales

&#149 A motorway bridge near Basingstoke

&#149 A library in Sutton, Surrey

&#149 Bristol's Broadmead shopping centre, which Prince Charles once singled out as doing more to ruin the city than Hitler did in the Blitz

&#149 Image of Pontefract Travelodge

&#149 Ashton-under-Lyne bus station