Scotland

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with love from Keswick (1979)

Keswick 1979

Dear Hilary, Ged here in Keswick and believe it or not its sunny for a change. Ta for your letter and postcard from up North. As you can see I’m in Keswick still but I go home on the 6th of September to my new house the address of which is 14 …. I’ve got to work till next Thursday so I’ll write a proper letter then from ….. So I’ll be able to tell you all my news then, tarra for now. Gerard xx P.S Don’t think much of the hotel on the other side. P.S.S. Hope you had a nice holiday! xx

Here’s another postcard being used to update an address change.  It’s amazing how often we all did that, back in the day! It is unclear whether Ged is staying in the hotel or working in it – the latter I suspect. Either way he’s obviously not a fan, despite the ‘warm welcome, courtesy and friendliness’ promised in print at the bottom!

Sunshine in Keswick is, of course, worthy of a comment 🙂  My postcard to him was from even further ‘up North’ – our family holiday that year was spent driving and camping round the north coast of Scotland.

Postmarked ‘KESWICK 11.30am 31 AUG 1979 CUMBRIA’, this card was posted exactly 37 years ago today! The other postmark is the old favourite ‘REMEMBER to use the POST CODE!’ which he hasn’t.

The card carries 10p worth of stamps which is approximately 52p today (2016).

This is three years after Ged and I first met and the correspondence was still fairly regular; these were the days long before texts, emails, Whatsapp, Facebook; when there were only 3 channels on UK tv and expensive long distance phone calls were made by special appointment and only with permission of the bill payer (Dad), who was generally sat in the same room listening in! Letter writing was the only option 🙂 

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with love from Scotland (1978)

With love from Scotland

Dear Hiraly,  We are in Scotland and having a brilliant time. We’ve had quite a lot of lousy weather but the last two days have been boiling. The other day we went to Loch Ness it’s really huge  22½ miles by 1½ miles! We didn’t see any sign of monster so we all sat & stared at Neil instead! ow! He just hit me. I hope you had a topping holiday what ho! By the way did I tell you I have definitely & decidedly gone right off Pete. You’re right he is a ugly spotty little weed! I don’t know how I ever could have liked him! Who’s the latest love in your life. I hope you’re luckier than me (that’s right I ain’t got one booked) I’d better go now not much room left. Lots of love Jacq x

PS I will write or phone you up so you can tell me what time you want me to come etc See you soon.

PSS Mum sends best wishes to everyone

Post marked Aberdeen 29th July 1978 and Jackie and I are still writing and apparently visiting each other. Once the status update is dealt with, Jackie gets on with the serious  business of teenage angst about our favourite topic, boys – it seems I was none to complimentary about her recent beau!

The other postmark is a different version of the post code reminder – it states ‘ABERDEEN is mechanised Letter Office PLEASE USE THE POSTCODES’. The whole point of postcodes being that mail could be mechanically, rather than manually, sorted.

Jackie’s brother Neil is mentioned in the card – Neil was the same age as my brother; it worked out really well when they lived right next door!