Interesting Postcards

Cavendish Hotel
Eastbourne
Tel: 27401
Hotel photograph includes new Devonshire Wing.

These Britons on holiday in Britain are doing what Britons on holiday in Britain always end up doing: making the best of it. On that unforgiving beach, under the relentless scrutiny of older people in deckchairs and in the shadow of the monstrous, unsympathetic new Devonshire Wing, the adults smile and try and look like they're having the time of their lives. To their right, however, their daughter undermines their plucky efforts with a simple but eloquent gesture of abject despair.

The back of the postcard says it all.

Interesting Postcards

Mildmay Convalescent Home,

Worthing,

Sussex. 

Mildmay may not look much fun to us, but then we're not recovering from a serious operation (my apologies if you are, indeed, recovering from a serious operation and still think it looks rubbish). In its defence, on the 24th June, 1977, June wrote to her family in Jersey stating that Mildmay is 'a most wonderful place' and she was actually there so she'd know, I suppose, unless, of course, the staff were burning her with hot knitting needles and forcing her to write nice things, the animals.

It's A Small World

The Miniature Village,

Eastbourne,

Sussex.

Fairly standard fare, but nicely done and very pretty on a nice day, I expect. I'd estimate the population at around 150, so why they need three churches is anyone's business. Probably a denominational thing: one's C of E, one R.C and one National Progressive Spiritualist.   

The Wrestling

More from my small but much loved collection of Wrestling memorabilia. There's a lot to like about this little flyer, but I particularly like the promise of the Tag Match between The Artful Dodgers and The Sepia Set. As this is 1973, I'm pretty sure that the latter will be a pair of black men.

The Wrestling

I love The Wrestling, the proper, sweaty, fat, hairy middle aged men pretending to be in agony wrestling. And look at those prices! Book then to avoid disappointment.  

Interesting Postcards

Marlborough Hotel

St. Leonards on Sea, Sussex

L6/SP. 2626 

I simply can't find anything clever to say about these postcards, I find them too depressing. The Marlborough Hotel apparently closed in the late eighties, and stood empty for many years before being demolished in 2001. Rather appropriately, a care home now stands in its place.   

It's A Small World

Fred Slaymakers Wonder Village,
Wannock Gardens,
Polegate, Sussex.

Good to see the Creator at the centre (and a bit off to the top left, respectively) of his own little Universe.In Sussex, God wears a beret. Fred Slaymaker spent ten years building the village out of concrete and rubbish: it includes coal scuttles, bin lids, tea trays, ashtrays, corks, bottle tops and bits of bike. So when does a model village become Outsider Art?'. I suppose the first time someone looks at a discarded cigar tube and thinks 'that would make a nice miniature chimney'.

I noticed that Fred included a travelling fair in his vision although, of course, it doesn't travel anywhere. The fair is a recurring feature in these tiny idealised towns: all the fun, permanently.