nursery rhymes

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With love from Banbury (1980)

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6/10/80 Dear Hilary, Just a quickie from me, while on holiday on the Oxford Canals. It is really good fun. We go to all the pubs en route and have had parties on the barge!! The weather has not been brilliant but we enjoying it so that’s all that matters! Today we are at Banbury. It is a really nice country town. I hope you are getting on OK at college. Bye for now Jan xx

A cheery status update from Janet,  who appears to have enjoyed at least two canal holidays in 1980!  As usual she is making the best of things, despite the inclement British weather.

The card is post marked is ‘BANBURY 1.15pm 7 OCT 1980 OXON’ and also carries the old favourite ‘Be properly addressed POSTCODE IT’.

In the UK we all hear about Banbury Cross from a young age thanks to a traditional nursery rhyme – although I suspect few of us have ever visited and some may not even realise the connection!

As I continue this reflection of my life through the postcards I’ve received, I am amazed at just how many messages some people have sent to me – Janet is one of the most prolific correspondents 🙂

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with love from Widecombe in the Moor (1975)

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Dear Hilary & John, We are having a very nice holiday the weather has been very kind to us.  We visited Widdicombe yesterday & today we are sitting looking at nice sea with quite large waves at Meadfoot Beach between Paignton & Torquay.  Love to Mummy & Daddy.  Grandad & G~~~ (Grandma to you)

A classic status update from my paternal grandparents to my brother and me.  The postmark date is Newton Abbot, 1 June 1975.   Five stamps adding up to 5½p which was the cost of sending a postcard second class in 1975 (this is approximately 50p in 2014).

The picture illustrates the old nursery rhyme which reads:

Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare, All along, down along, out along lee; For I want to go to Widecombe Fair Wi’ Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davey, Dan’l Whiddon, ‘Arry Hawk, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.

Grandad died in the early eighties.  Grandma was my last surviving grandparent and lived on to see me married, but missed being a Great Grandma.  In actual fact she was my Dad’s stepmother, but when I was born it was decided (for ease) that she would be known as Grandma.  She was a great needlewoman and textile artist and encouraged this in me.  More about my love of textiles here http://www.textiletarts.co.uk/about