This card came to me in a set of old UK postcards from my friend John.
It was posted at Ryde on the Isle of Wight at 9.30 in the morning on 9 July 1926. It has a red penny stamp and is addressed to a Fred in Kentish Town, London. The picture on the front is St Catherine’s Lighthouse.
The message is in pencil and has faded badly, so I read it with a lot of squinting. It is from Bert. He hopes Fred received his earlier card. They are still having a good time, but he can hardly believe they are back at work on Monday. He is writing on the way home. They have been to Blackgang Chine and been over the lighthouse in the picture. He sends kind regards from Ben and himself.
9 July 1926 was a Friday, so Monday really was close. I like that he wrote it on the journey home and posted it that same morning. The holiday was nearly over and he wanted Fred to hear about it before it was.
St Catherine’s stands at the southern tip of the island. Trinity House built it in 1838, after the wreck of the Clarendon in Chale Bay in 1836. The tower was originally about 40 metres tall, but the light kept disappearing into fog. In 1875 it was shortened by 13 metres. It was automated in 1997.
The detail I noticed is the small building on the left of the photograph, with two horns sticking up through its roof. I think it is the fog signal house, built in 1888. By 1932 erosion had undermined it and it was demolished. So the card shows a building that no longer exists.
Bert and Ben walked round that lighthouse as visitors, and I have been looking at it for the best part of a century afterwards. I don’t know who Fred was, or whether he kept the card. I am glad someone did.
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