Autobiography

From the early 1950s, tens of thousands of
postcards deemed offensive were destroyed as
part of the government’s aggressive antiobscenity
campaign.
A new exhibition displaying 1,300 titillating
postcards, seized by police between 1951 to
1961, is being held by the British Cartoon
Archive at the University of Kent. The display
features cards that were seized by police in
Margate, Kent.
It includes work by Donald McGill, a prolific
postcard artist who in 1954 was found guilty of
violating obscenity laws and made to pay a
£50 fine plus £25 costs.
Most prosecutions of the day were carried out
under the Obscene Publications Act 1857.
Following a complaint, police would obtain a
search warrant, raid the shop and seize
offending stock. After being presented to
magistrates, the owners would be summoned
to court and if the courts were persuaded that
the postcards were obscene, they would be
destroyed. To protect themselves, censorship
committees were set up by shopkeepers in
some resorts, including Hastings, Brighton and
Blackpool, to ban the worst cards.
The Tory campaign lasted for about a decade
but fizzled out in the early 1960s when public
attitudes to sex became more liberal and open.
Nick Hiley, curator of the British Cartoon
Archive, said: ‘What is interesting is that at the
time the authorities thought they were a door
opening into hell and a slippery slope to
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