Postcards are history in all its messy, sometimes silly glory – lets hope they survive…

I love old postcards. Not just the dated images on the front, but the dated messages on the back. Really not that long ago, all our lives were summed up on them. But now, yet again, a survey tells us that the picture postcard is dying, mortally wounded by social media and digital communication.

I beg to differ. When I started posting images of old postcards online, along with snippets of the messages from the back, they proved hugely popular. Now I have compiled the best into a book. And it is illuminating to look back. The American music writer Greil Marcus talked about folk music evoking “the Old, Weird America”. When I’m sitting rummaging through a box of old cards it can feel like I’m on…