On Postcards

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Many years ago whilst car-booting, I came across some post-cards featuring old songs. This event started a collection which I still add to when I spot a new one.

They were known as 'Song Cards' and were very popular around 100 years ago.

Whatever the mood, whatever the need, if there was any kind of sentiment involved, a set of Bamforth cards was available to express it.

Sold mostly in sets of three (but also fours, twos and singles) they were purchased in an envelope marked ....

"Set of Three Cards - 4 1/2d".

They would be sent singly, usually at intervals of a week with the recipient eagerly awaiting the arrival of the others.

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The firm of Bamforth was founded in 1870 and produced glass slides for 'Magic Lanterns'.

Production switched from slides to postcards in 1902 when it became apparent that the postcard industry had finally taken off. The hey-days of theses song cards was from 1902 - 1918.

In those early years at the beginning of the last century such moments of joy waited on the postman's arrival. The postcard was supreme....and with a totally reliable postal service (please note!) that provided up to six deliveries a day (in London), a swain dropping a card into a postbox would know with absolute certainty that his young lady would receive it first thing next morning.

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Having dozens of sets now, it is difficult to decide which to show.....the words won't be legible although I think if you click on them they will enlarge.

Next day delivery seems to be a thing of the past.

I read today of a postcard, sent from holidays in Greece,which took 22 years to get delivered!

Wendy Bosworth, now 64, from Wolverhampton, received the card, slightly damaged and in a sealed bag, after it was posted by her niece Joanne Bosworth, who was holidaying on the island ofNisyros in 1987.

Mrs Bosworth, a retired book-keeper, told of her surprise after it dropped on her mat in Blackburn Avenue, Claregate

"The postcard said about how the island was not affected by tourism and how the sea was beautiful and the people were very friendly.

"We had a joke when I spoke to Joanne and she said 'I wondered why you never said thank you'. She was amazed."

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "We would like to apologise for the delay.

"It's a bit of a mystery, I'm afraid, as we don't track items of ordinary mail but it's unlikely that it has been in our system for 22 years."

Last year a postcard was delivered 79 years late. The picture postcard was sent in 1929 from Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex intended for Mr and Mrs Richardson in East Dulwich, London, but was not delivered until it dropped through the letter box of Arthur Davies and June Nicolopoulos after a delay of nearly eight decades.