Joining Tom Jackson to discuss the postcards from their pasts are author CATHY RENTZENBRINK (The Last Act of Love, Everyone Is Still Alive) and TOBY HANNAM, whose collection of his grandfather’s correspondence to his father from a Nazi concentration camp are priceless family – and historical – archive and memoir. We explore postcards as lifelines, postcards as symbols of friendship, postcards in scrapbooks; we stroll from the Tower of London to Harrods pet shop, from Tahrir Square to the British Museum, from the Casual Sex Capital of the UK to an imagined suburban resort via London Zoo. Life in all its beauty and horror, on postcards. Wish you were here?

Good Luck From Beer, 16 August, 1977, “We are having a really great holiday, this part of Devon is all so old and unspoilt we have walked for miles this week. The weather is super – so far. We have used up the suntan lotion I bought and are all sun burned., it didn’t do a lot of good. George bought a dingy for the kids, haven’t been able to keep them out of it. The sea water is so clear around here its as clear as tap water.”
New Forest Donkeys, 5 October 1966, “I hope you are getting along O.K. The weather is more sunny today, we have been to Barton, now sitting by beach at Milford, went fishing yesterday. Still enjoying good food, quite happy here, would like more sun. Hope you haven’t got too wet, if so, hope you changed clothes, especially socks. Don’t forget home-work., look after Patch.”
Cards from Toby Hannam’s extraordinary family archive of postcards sent from his grandfather in Theresienstadt concentration camp to his father in Britain.
Cathy’s postcard sent from a school trip to London to her grandmother. The pink bits are vestiges of a scrap-book page.
Haytor, Dartmoor, 6 June, 1962, “Time is flying by here, it won’t be long before I’m home. I’m afraid I’m going to find typing dreadfully boring when I get back!”

Toby’s souvenir card from the Treasures of Tutankhamun Exhibition.
Cathy’s Carshalton postcard from her friend Jo, offering support and encouragement, before her first book was published.
A Polish musical postcard record. A rose overlaid by a German song.