Saturday, Tuesday, Dear John

Love, friendship, and ... custard. Three postcards from three different decades.

In a few days’ time, I’ll be celebrating my ‘freelancerversary’ – four years since I went all-out freelance as a writer, editor, and proofreader. It’s already been such a happy time of life; I get to select, shape, and sharpen words every day, and I love it. Looking back over these last years, August is always one of my busiest months, so while I’m not actually on holiday right now, it is still officially UK holiday season, and I’m going to share some more postcards from my collection.

I’ve chosen three, from three different decades.

From the sixties:

Postcard message written in blue biro from the Caribe Hotel, Costa Brava

Saturday.

I love you and I miss you. Not long now. I’ll be at Finchley about 6 p.m. on Tuesday. I’ll try to come over (if I’m not too wacked).

Love you very much.

Your Will.

---

From the seventies:

Postcard message written from Blackpool, in blue biro. There’s a rubber-stamped advert for ‘Opening soon: Blackpool Zoo’ across the top-right of the writing.

Tuesday

The weather is beautiful and have lovely meals and I hope you and the children are well and Simon is alright and it is really magnificent here.

All my love

Paula.

Good on Paula for using loads of ‘ands’ – she’s embraced the postcard style perfectly, I reckon. And kudos also for saying a lot with not a lot; case in point: Simon.

---

From the eighties:

Postcard message written in black biro, with one part written in blue. Some lines redacted.

Dear John,

At last I’m in Edinburgh. I have been able to catch the last days of Edinburgh International Festival.

… [Redacted: several lines of potentially identifying info] …

What did you do in honeymoon? At last I ate custard!

The custard line is written in a different shade of biro, so presumably, it’s a later, important, addition. Interestingly (to me anyway!), the sender was returning from hols to start, or to continue to, work/train in a hospital. Which makes the custard comment all the more comedic and intriguing. Was it custard training for the unavoidable hospital canteen food? Having done some professional fact-checking aka ‘custard research’, I found it would have been possible in the eighties to have a double-custard day in hospital of 'Apple Crumble & Custard' for lunch pudding, then 'Apricots & Custard' for supper pudding. Somewhat disturbingly, I also found a recipe, which was discovered in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh archive, for fish custard. As it sounds like the postcard-writer wasn’t having a staycation, hopefully they were safe from this abomination.*

*Update: I read the recipe and fish custard actually sounds delicious and seemingly was rebranded to something like ‘haddock in parsley sauce’ outside of hospital walls.

The front images of the three postcards. Left to right: Four views from Edinburgh with a central picture of two Scottie dogs, one black and one white, both with tartan bows around their necks; Blackpool North Pier and Tower with blue skies and holidaymakers enjoying lounging on the pier deckchairs and the beach; four scenes of the Caribe Hotel, Costa Brava, including one of a twin room with vibrant-green bedspreads, sky-blue walls and the toilet (or bidet?) of the ensuite in view, and another of the hotel reception including a postcard rack (sadly not meta enough to be featuring the postcard itself).

---