dirty (naughty) seaside postcards

I thought, after the shoe throwing entry (last blog, see below) we needed something a little lighter..Not many people know this but I collect what is known as 'dirty postcards ' or saucy postcards'(WOW! I hear you all saying 'What a shock') These are very very English and are basically badly drawn cartoons with a really stupid naughty sentence written somewhere on the card (as you can see from the example above) I have been collecting them for years...It suddenly hit me today, as I pondered through my extensive collection to ask the question WHY? Well I cant really answer why I collect them but I'll give you all a little history about these cards....o.k. here goes..

Saucy Seaside Postcards are a peculiar tradition but are synonymous with holidays along the British coast. They typify the quirky humour of the British which often revolves around sex or bodily functions.

With the English invention of seaside holidays having been popularised by the Victorians, the promenades and piers started to see stalls selling seaside novelties. Seaside postcards with bawdy captions first appeared in the early 20th Century and became extremely popular during the First World War.

Characters would mostly be well endowed young women, well built older women, hen pecked husbands and red nosed drunks. Subjects usually involved either the beach, hospitals, nudist camps or indeed anything where a sexual content could be included. The predominant feature being double entendre (A word or phase having a double meaning especially when the second meaning is risqué) and spoonerisms (A transposition of the initial sounds of two words).

If you are still awake after the brief history, I will tell you that last time I was in a seaside town that use to have an abundance of these cards (southend on sea) I looked for them and looked for them...Guess what? They are all slowly disappearing.I blame the internet. So maybe its time to dust off my seaside vulgarity and frame them and hang them in a place of honor for all to see ..then again.

P.S. Most of the cards have something written on the back and that something is all rather similar from card to card.It says something like this...'Having a wonderful time. Little bobby threw up all over harry but we did laugh.It hasn't stopped raining.See you next tuesday, wish you were here...