Joining Tom Jackson to discuss the postcards from their pasts are seaside historian KATHRYN FERRY (The Nation’s Host: Butlin’s and the Story of the British Seaside, Bungalows, The 1950s Kitchen, Holiday Camps, Sheds on the Seashore: A Tour through Beach Hut History) and writer, journalist and editor, VICTORIA RICHARDS (Primers IV, BBC News, Times, Independent). Join a charabanc tour round fake donkeys, Butlins, the thrills of mixed bathing, postcard witnesses to life-changing moments, and a snow fox from Japan. Wish you were here?

A sustainable wooden postcard received by Victoria and her children, surreptitiously sent by her father, while they were both on a trip to Kew Gardens. A normal first class stamp was sufficient.
Greetings from TEIGNMOUTH, 1964. “Have flayed the skin on “me gamy leg” very painful.”
Sunset at Wells-Next-The-Sea, 1972. “We have all caught the sun – also a sickness germ.”
Kathryn’s John Hinde postcard, which she collected as a teenager and subsequently recovered from a box in her parents’ loft. Port Mellon, Mevagissey, Cornwall, 1985. “Did you know I’d done a bunk? Can’t say I feel at ease being here on my own. Hope you’ve recovered from Saturday. We were worried about you…”
A postcard of Portmeirion, North Wales, sent to her grandparents by Kathryn in 1988 when she was on a school trip, staying at Butlins, Pwhelli. “I’m having a great time here at Butlins. The food’s not too good and chalets are pretty cold but I’ll manage.”
THE SANDS, BLACKPOOL, 1908. Early photo-manipulation – there’s no way that little girl was on that donkey on that beach…
Felixstowe, 1905. Note the early beach huts.
Victoria’s fox in the snow – a postcard sent unexpectedly from a friend in Japan.
A bathing postcard from 1904, from Kathryn’s collection. The excitement and novelty of mixed bathing is captured in this slightly provocative postcard. “How does this strike you for two fine pair of legs?”
The Waterways, Great Yarmouth, 1961. “We have managed 4 bathes in the whole fortnight the weather has been so awful. We have been in to Yarmouth to the cinema, a circus, and the Bruce Forsyth show.”
A musical postcard – the chain bridge in Budapest.