•POSTCARDS
Postcards, like stamps, are an almost perfect art form.
They can be powerfully angry helping campaigners put over their point in the most succinct way.
They can be a snapshot window to the world (pre FaceBook) and can convey the journey you are currently enjoying to the folks back home.
I once bought a pack of 50 old, used postcards and found hours of entertainment reading out the sometimes bland, sometimes poignant messages scribbled on the reverse.
In his book THE POSTCARD CENTURY, collector Tom Philips finds the same kind of enjoyment and fascination. I mention this book because one of my miners' support postcards features in this collection of 20th century postcards.
Originally created in conjunction with Leeds Postcards my pack of 8 designs, and then a subsequent follow-on pack, raised over £25,000 for striking miners' families during the 1984 strike.
Here are some details about Tom's book...November 2000 marks the publication of Tom's latest book, The Postcard Century. It tells the story of the Twentieth Century with postcards and the messages they contain.
Like so many of Tom's projects, this book grows from a set of rules: the postcards had to bear contemporaneous imagery (e.g., a Beatles card from 1962, not 1996); they had to have been sent; and the message ought to relate to the image on the recto. The result is a treasure-trove of first-hand accounts of the banal and sublime, the profane and the sacred.
The book has already received critical acclaim in the British press, including a stirring piece by Simon Callow in The Observer.
My postcard designs eventually influenced the publication of MY first book DRAWING CONCLUSIONS. Along with charts and cartoons, illustrations and photographs it chronicles the main campaigns during the acid reign of Thatcher. Plus, a foreword by Bruce Kent no less!
Still available, directly from HFG, email for details.
