Nationally the first postcard was produced in October 1869, and I believe that it would be impossible to contemplate the numbers that have been sent since that date. The cards themselves have changed considerably from the first, which only allowed the address on one side and the message on the reverse, to the colourful postcards of the present day. Prior to 1894 many of the British postcards were quite plain.

They were known as postal stationery cards, and usually had a view depicting exhibitions or advertising. However from September 1872 the private picture postcard was officially permitted. In 1882 the first reply paid postcard was introduced.

In a Girls Realm magazine of 1900 there was an article regarding their perception of the postcard, which began, "I can imagine a future generation building up by their help (the postcard) all the life of today, our children, our pets, our adventures, youth etc. all are to be found there on." The report continued, "the postcard belongs to a period peopled by a hurried generation which has not many minutes to spare for writing to friends, what with the express trainings, telegrams and telephones the world has become a small place. "The Victorians said 'how absurd it is to write private information on an open piece of cardboard," and they believed that they would never catch on. How wrong they were to be proved!

Postcards have been issued for a variety of reasons, pictorials, comic, disasters, commemoratives etc., as I have shown in my articles over the weeks. Today you can visit Postcard fairs where the traders will be catering for all tastes. Some collectors favour scenes of railways, piers or churches. Whilst others collect work by certain artists or publishers. Other categories include, fashion, animals etc. It is so wide a subject that it is impossible to even scratch the surface in just one article. Bognor has had its fair share of postcard photographers and publishers covering a range of scenes and events. There were a wide range of postcard producers in the last century such as R. Briant Burgess, Cleeves, King and Wilson,

Lawrence Wood, W.P. Marsh, Donald Massey, Webster and Webb and more who produced just a few cards. Nationally production rose to the challenge of supplying these much-requested postcards into an extremely large business. Over the years there have been many interesting messages on the reverse of the postcard including, "Nothing to say - so I shall not write yet," followed by "This is where I am now, just had a lovely bathe in the sea. We had to be drawn out in a bathing machine by a horse, as the sands were so long." Other messages give another interpretation such as "The donkeys here look as interesting as usual," and finally in 1921 "It is frightfully nice here, but so slow, very restful (ugh.)"

A large number of cards were produced to commemorate the visit of King George V during his convalescence in Bognor, produced to enable the visitor to report home that they had been to see the King, or at least the house in which he stayed.

Many of these cards were produced to raise funds, such as one by Kodak who were to devote all the profits to the King Edward Hospital Fund of which King George was a patron. Postcard producers have always dreamed of being in a

position to link views and national events to increase their sales and those in Bognor really took the opportunity to do so at this time.

Advertising cards also had their place, and E & O Carter, whose shop was situated in the High Street, produced such a card. The one I have in my collection my collection was typed and sent to a customer with the message, "we are not sure if it is white or light cream No. 3 Star Sylko you require, we have just received light cream 739."
Service from a bygone age!

We have also had our share of disasters with the ship wreck at Aldwick to the numerous High seas and flooding that were recorded onto locally produced cards.

Air views of any place are always interesting, and this particular view of the centre of Bognor clearly shows St. John's church, the Pavilion and Waterloo Square, before the Bowling Green arrived.
This type of card is of course invaluable today to

the local historian providing a snapshot of the area at a particular time.

The comic postcards were also well sought out by the holiday maker, from the point of view of humour, but also because many cards invariably had a small lift up flap from where 10 to 12 fold up views of their chosen holiday destination would emerge. These provided more views of heir holiday destination and were eagerly awaited by those at home.

It is difficult for us today to try and imagine the excitement that would have been created by the arrival of these small pieces of card, at a time when communications were so much more difficult than today. No television, no holiday programmes, no regular newspaper, no glossy magazines from which to choose your holiday destination, just these small pictorial cards from which to glean information about other areas of the country.

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