Would you pay £1,000 for this post- card? - Picture Postcard Monthly

Desert IslandPostcardsI am not at all sure that I have the necessary qualificationsto be stranded on a Postcard Desert Island. Itis true that I have been collecting postcards andattending fairs for all of 25 years, during which timeI, together with my husband Derek, have met manyinteresting people who invariably did their best toadd to our collection. Sadly, many of these knowledgeabletroupers are no longer with us. I would likehere to single out just one of these stalwarts, the lateSheila Hart, a local dealer and collector. It was Sheilawho introduced us to postcards. Over the years contacthad been established because of my husband’sphilatelic interests but Sheila quite frequently ‘dangled’a few postcard specimens before me and I doremember my first sight of some art colour postcardsof Shrewsbury by Edwin Cole and EvacustesPhipson. Not expensive cards, but they were my ‘cupof tea’. I was hooked! Founder membership ofShropshire Postcard Club was soon to follow. Byway of a postscript to these early years, I subsequentlywas able to purchase at auction many of theitems I cherished from Sheila’s never-to-be-repeatedcollection of Shropshire postcards.The considerable doubt inmy mind regarding my suitabilityto participate in thisbout of escapism concernsan episode in my life whichI wish to put firmly behindme. My mother, Emily, waswith Mais Walleyto die relatively young,before I was married or hada house of my own. Ofcourse, she had a collectionof family memorabilia,many items I can readilyrecall to this day. ThereMoor Farm, Stoke St. Milborough. no 1349 in the Wildingseries and dated 1907. A rather battered example butpriceless to me, for the card was sent by my mother, Emily,to my grandmother, Mary, at Blue Hall, Holgate in the ruraldepths of the Upper Corvedale, South Shropshire. Thecard came to me courtesy of a cousin.14 Picture Postcard Monthly November 2009Inter Art Company ‘LittleBlack Cat’ series. This is the first example of this seriesthat I set my eyes on in Leominster some twenty or soyears ago. A superb series, all unsigned but what a pricethey would be now if the artist had not been so diffident!(right) Souvenir de Lorraine.A much more recentcollecting interest of myhusband and me - what areoften loosely termed‘embroidered silk greetings’of World War I. French townexamples are particularlysought after; a sheet full ofspecimens can prove to beextremely attractive.(left) Artist Arthur Thiele.Without doubt an examplefrom one of the mostdelightful series of postcardsfeaturing cats inhuman dress. I considerthis wonderful Germanartist to be several easelssuperior to other wellknownand much-promotedcat artists.were letters and postcardssent between family members,but the outstandingelement was a large selectionof regimental silk cardsposted from the battlefieldsof France by brothers andfriends of the family. Yes,you have guessed it, they alllanded up on a garden bonfire!With this proviso inmind, I will attempt to giveyou some idea of the postcarddelectations of aShropshire Lass.My early interests weretopographical cards withparticular emphasis on afew local publishers, mostnotably the 2,500 differentexamples published byWildings of Shrewsbury,many of which are wonderfulillustrations of local andsocial history. However,after a few years, my husbandand I were making one(left) Stoke St. Milborough, The Mill. Another in the Wildingseries, no.1350. this is my home village, which is setagainst a backdrop of Brown Clee Hill, Shropshire’s highestpoint. When I was a youngster I thought it was milesfrom nowhere and it was! The mill has particular memoriesfor me, for on one of my many visits I walked up thesteps to the open door to the left of the picture just to havemy usual peep at the revolving wheel. On this occasion Ilost my footing on a loose slab and only just managed tostop myself from falling headlong into the rushing watersbelow. Such memories!