Shady Lane II

Second postcard I have used of Shady Lane in Evington, Leicester. The Postcard is posted in 1917 and has a Halfpenny stamp.

It is To Dear Ethel, and is 'With Best Love and Kisses Yours For Ever Willie'

Dunster, Yarn Market & Castle

I inherited from My Uncle Dennis a postcard album. In it was this postcard of Dunster, which I particularly like because of family associations. I never knew Uncle Dennis because our family has a strange history of schisms. I have other artifacts from him including cassettes tapes of bird song which he introduces. I would have liked to have known him.

Vitkov Hill

We visited Prague two years ago and on one day climbed Vítkov hill, the subject of this postcard from an earlier 1973 visit, to view the huge equestrian statue of Czech 14th Century hero : Jan Žižka.

Prague will always hold a fascination for me. When I first visited in 1973 it was still behind the iron curtain. My dad had not only arranged a family holiday for us but was also taking Christian books to Christian friends in a communist state.

I remember that, as well as the Christian books, the border guards also found a John Paul Sartre novel in my brother's bag - which was approved off by the state and helped my dad's cause. But in my bag was a novel about nihilism by Alan Sillitoe. That confused the situation considerably.

My dad was interrogated for some hours at the border, and all the Christian books and the novel about nihilism were appended to the visa so we had to take them out of the country again or risk I don't know what. Throughout the holiday we felt we were being watched - quite possibly we were - but the authorities let us in because we had valuable foreign currency.

The unknown Soldier

A high percentage of those killed in battle in WW I were never identified, and just one of those was chosen to be buried with the highest honour as an Everyman. Even the battlefield where he was found was kept secret. In the end the choice came down between six unknowns who were draped in union jacks and laid in a chapel. Two high ranking officers went in. The highest ranking General rested his hand on one of the bodies and they placed that body in a plain coffin to be buried among all the Kings and Great people with great ceremony at Westminster Abbey.

Those same generals sent possibly hundreds of thousands of unknowns - unknown to them that is - off to the fields that were later covered in poppies.

David and Bathsheba

This postcard is part of the The 'Picturegoer' series and shows Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward in "David and Bathsheba" The 1951 film can still be got through Amazon who say it is... "A sprawling. Action-packed epic that sweeps off the pages of the Bible and across the screen recreating one of the most torrid tales of passion ever told"