Joining Tom Jackson to discuss the postcards from their pasts are journalist and author RACHEL JOHNSON (Notting Hell, The Lady, The Mummy Diaries) and writer NICK ASBURY (The Disappointments Diary, Realtime Notes). We explore Notting Hill, take a trip up the A6, discover the secrets of the Inferior Poetry Society, animal cruelty, jokes on postcards that are understood only by the senders. Along the way we consider twisted fan mail to Take That, if you should think twice about visiting Hibbing, and ask whether too much television can give you indigestion. And a postcard from the Prime Minister. Wish you were here?

Mounted Sentry at Horse Guards Buildings, 1972. “Thanks for the card. I knew I should have thumped you when I had the chance.”
Hampton Court Palace, aerial view, 1979. “No more red currant pies please.”
Nick Asbury’s card of Cologne, sent to him by a fellow member of the Inferior Poets Society, and bearing an inferior poem.
Hibbing Minnesota. The card was sent to Nick by the same friend, this time on a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Bob Dylan.
Rachel Johnson’s card of the Degas painting Portrait of Henri Michel-Lévy. This postcard was sent to her by a boyfriend during her student days and doubled as a holiday postcard and birthday card.
A card from Elba sent by Rachel’s friend Nell Butler, sent in the correspondents’ early twenties. The message is playful and silly and was probably more fun to send than to receive.
I Love You, 1994. “YOUR THE MOST DISGUSTING GROUP ON THE POP SCENE YOUR UGLY, YOU CAN’T SING…”A postcard sent by a young fan to Take That, via the television programme Parallel 9.
A postcard of Stockport Public Library. Nick has a lifelong association with the A6, pictured here, and has even created an A6 notebook, that contains material about the A6 rod, and is produced in the A6 format.
A postcard sent to Rachel by her brother, Boris Johnson, from Riga (although the image is of Vilnius). Boris Johnson’s association with a number of Russians has been much speculated about in recent months, but this postcard indicates an early interest in the Soviet Union and its satellites.
Washington Square, where Rachel Johnson spent happy times with her mother and step-father.
Pleached laburnum at Hampton Court Palace, 1982. “I’ve watched so much TV I’ve got indigestion.”
It’s not Mickey Mouse, it just looks like him, on this 1958 musical postcard.