I am an avid collector of vintage postcards - I have been since I was a small child. Over the years, I have gathered a large collection of cards ranging from topographical cards of English places to subject cards of cats and dogs. My all time favourite type of postcard are the beautiful silk postcards sent home during the First World War by soldiers to their loved ones. Most of these postcards were put into protective envelopes and sent back home to Blighty in the normal post. It is for this reason that the majority of First World War silk postcards do not have any details about the recipient and so appear to have been unposted.
It seemed appropriate at Easter to post an image of one such postcard - sent home from a soldier to his mother in 1916. All I know about the sender is that his name was "Stan" - I have no other detail about him. I hope he survived the war and returned home to his mother and family. He must have written his postcard whilst "resting" - before moving back up to the Front and the horror of the trenches.
[Below is an exact transcription of the back of the postcard - including grammatical errors.]
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1916: Dear Mother and all at home. Just a card hoping it will find you well I are. Pleased to say. I are quite well and getting on allright there is little news I can tell only by the time you get this I will be in the trenches again. From your loving son Stan.
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Whoever you were, Stan,
an unknown soldier of the British Army,
I salute you, and hope you made it home.
an unknown soldier of the British Army,
I salute you, and hope you made it home.
Happy Easter (Heureuses Paques)
to the readers of this blog
Happy Easter (Heureuses Paques)
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I look forward to sharing with you more of my discoveries over the coming months - see you next time on this blog on 18th May 2014. In the meantime, you can catch me on my blog Essex Voices Past or on twitter @EssexVoicesPast
You may also be interested on my previous posts on this blog
© Essex Voices Past 2014
A lovely post! I share your enthusiasm for vintage postcards and am lucky to have quite a collection of First World War cards sent home by my grandfather, though I have no Easter cards. A good number have messages on to my grandmother, mother, aunt and uncle, so are extra special. They have featured heavily in my personal blog at http://scotsue-familyhistoryfun.blogpost.co.uk under the topics War & Remembrance and Danson Family. .
ReplyDeleteIt always surprises me that in the midst of such chaos the soldiers managed to send such beautiful cards home to their friends and family. Also surprising that the women of the French villages kept to their traditional skills and brought beauty into the own families' lives whenever possible. Happy Easter to you and yours also Kate.
ReplyDeleteCassmob, I agree. I never even considered that a soldier could find silk postcard in the midst of war. It is certainly beautiful.
DeleteIt is very startling to see such dazzling bright vivid colours in amongst what we know of all that mud and bloodshed. Also the very fact that most images we see of the First World War are in black & white makes silk postcards even more of a vivid contrast to all that horror.
ReplyDelete