august 30th 1909 will to bess and carl

south Norwood, London to st leonards, hastings, sussex

58 miles

the message

"Dear Bess + Carl

Many thanks for your cards. Hope you are having lovely weather. It rained hard last night up here. I hope that cough will get Bess off before long. Mr + Mrs Rudd and ?? ? ??? were down Sunday. + ? ????? Husband came down with everyone.

With love from all

Will

the sender

No clues to Will's identity.

The recipient

Unfortunately the postmark has completely obscured the surname of the recipient. From the message it can be deduced that it is a Carl and Bess. The other think is what links it to the Cruttenden collection and that is the address. In 1909, the Cruttenden family were the occupants of 3 Upper South Road and presumably Carl and Bess were down on the coast for their summer holidays.

the places

South Norwood, London

St Leonards, Hastings, Sussex

what the card says to us

The picture on the card is a hand coloured photograph of Godmanchester new Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. It hasn't been very well coloured because there are clouds in front of the church steeple. The card is interesting because it was given away as a free gift with one of three magazines produced by Shurey Publications, namely "Smart Novels", "Yes Or No", and "Dainty Novels". They look to have been a bit Mills and Boon. Shurey's operated from the 1880s to the 1930s with a great many titles some of which were continued by other publishers.

It is interesting that people on holiday left their address and that postcards were sent to them, like emails, while they were away.

There is a curious phrase in this message which may be a mistake. "that cough will get Bess off before long" does not sound good. Did it mean that she would get over the cough soon? I hope so.

Also, it rained hard in South Norwood on August 29th.