August 25th 1913 Lizzy to Miss Young

Weymouth, Dorset to upper norwood, south london

137 miles

the message

"My dear J.

thanks very much for nice letter thought you would like birds eye view it is lovely down here + all going well am looking forward to m coming I thought a was not getting on very well I read between the lines in what she said all wont put up with it + why should they I hear norwood is very empty of coarse it is the holiday month hope you will excuse card as have severall to answer + time does fly so quickly there is not much time for oneself you know kind remembrance to miss H + love to self hope both are well also dickie

Lizzy"

the sender

Even the name Lizzy is a bit of a guess. Whoever sent it wrote very small and did not bother with punctuation or capitalisation of letters and liked to refer to people by single letters rather than names. and there are some spelling issues. What relation they were to Miss Young is also impossible to determine. Family? Work colleague? Pupil to teacher? It can be assumed that whoever they were, they were on holiday in Weymouth from South London, or Surrey as it would have been in 1913. The somewhat gossipy element to the text makes them sound like a teenage girl, but who knows.

the recipient

The recipient remains a mystery too. She is Miss Young, and her initial is probably J although it could be I. Normally, with a clearly written address it is easy to find the recipient, but in the case even the address has proved elusive. In the 1911 census the houses in Alexander Road in Upper Norwood skip from 5 to 9, missing out 7. This suggests that the building between 5 and 9 was not residential. May be it was a shop. Or a school. Whatever the answer, there is no one registered by the name of Young at that address. Today it looks as if the original Alexandra Road has been rebuilt.

the places

Weymouth, Dorset

Upper Norwood, South London

what the card says to us

Weymouth was a tourist destination in 1913 and promoting itself with classic "wish you were here" style postcards with multiple views of local places of interest. Radipole Lake is now an RSPB reserve. Upwey Wishing Well now has a restaurant attached. Alexandra Gardens now seems to have an amusement arcade.

This card raises lots of questions. Who is a and what did they write that had things that could be read between the lines? Who is Miss H? Who is m and when were they going to arrive in Weymouth and from where? What about Dickie?

Tantalising