Sellafield Visitor Centre

Sellafield is Britain's most famous nuclear site. At Sellafield the first commercial nuclear power station became operational. At Sellafield plutonium was produced for nuclear weapons and a major disaster was narrowly averted in 1957. At Sellafield there is now a nuclear waste reprocessing plant.

This postcard shows the 'Tunnel' Entrance to the Visitors' Centre - as it was. We visited about ten years ago and had a go on a lot of high tech exhibits which helped explain nuclear power. The Visitors' Centre once attracted about 1,000 people per day, but its popularity declined, and it has now been converted to a conference centre.

Entrance To The Asylum

This postcard from the early 1900s was produced at a time when Asylums were a popular subject.

Before closure in the 1980s it was called St Lawrence's Hospital, rather than Caterham Asylum.

It was a large Victorian asylum put up to look after people from London with learning difficulties - located quite some way from any family who might want to visit. It was one of many London overspill asylums in leafy Surrey, and was an H shape with a female side, a male side and a connecting corridor with many services filling in the central area: like kitchens, recreation hall, swimming pool, laundrey, tailor etc. .

Some old asylums had architectural value, but St Lawrences was cheap and functional and so was just knocked down before being turned into a housing estate in the early 1990s.

From the book ... "I did not eat the goldfish"

A free cinema postcard.

I have never understood why they give away free postcards at the cinema but will leave that for now and maybe return to that when I get round to doing a Phd thesis in Postcard Studies.

The card shows a poem written by Children's Poet Roger Stevens.

Taken from the book... I Did Not Eat the Goldfish by Roger Stevens

I did not eat the goldfish
It was not me
At the time of the crime
I was sitting in a tree

I did not eat the goldfish
That's no word of a lie
I loved his silvery fins
And his mischievous eye

I did not eat the goldfish
I did not touch one golden scale
And I've no idea why there is pondweed
Hanging from my tail

Forget me not

An Alzheimer's Society postcard ... "One in three people over 65 will die with dementia. Your donation to Alzheimer's Society will help us raise money to care for people today and to find a cure for tomorrow."

Alzheimers is a brain disease that has made you forget who we are but we won't forget who you are.

A Curious Tramway - Horse as Passenger

Until recently - and by recently we are talking March 4th 1937 when a typed note was fixed to the back of this postcard - this strange sight could be seen near Denver, Colorado. The antiquated Englewood to Cherrelyn tramway rises steeply for its 1 1/2 miles, up which the solitary horse drew the derelict car. The horse was then unhitched, and gladly occupied the rear platform while the car coasted down on the return journey, the driver controlling the brakes as necessary. At the end of its life, the car was run purely as a novelty, and was covered all over with the signatures of tourists.

Oranges... your favourite fruit

The first postcard in my collection, but not the oldest.

It was bigger and more shiney than the postcards we would have sent from Skegness and Cromer. It is from my Mum and Dad in Majorca in 1970. The first time they ever went away without us.

The message begins "A picture of your favourite fruit!!...

It pre-dates figs and mangoes.