may 10th 1915 jocasta (?) to alice wildman

strand, london to adlington, chorley, lancashire

227 miles

the message

“Dear Alice

Just a line to let you know we shan’t be able to see John it is to far away this is the Hotel we are staying at we are having splendid weather

Jocaster”

the sender

The signature looks like Jocasta, but probably isn’t. Whoever it is, they have not used punctuation or capital letters properly. All the sentences run into one another. The implication is that the sender is a servant staying with their employer at the Strand Palace Hotel.

the recipient

Alice Wildman (1898-1981) was the youngest child of Henry Wildman (1855-1938) and Mary Ann Sanders (1855-1946). Henry had a plastering business.

Alice married Tom Harry Shufflebottom in 1929. Tom worked in a coal mine. The card is addressed to “Miss A Wildman, Milliner”. Perhaps Alice was a milliner. One of her sisters was.

the tree

the places

Strand, London to Adlington, Chorley, Lancashire

Strand, London

Adlington, Chorley, Lancashire

what the card says to us

The picture shows a view of the Strand Palace Hotel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strand_Palace_Hotel) which was built in 1909. It looks very grand. It was where the card was sent from.

The message is partly a weather report for London in May 1915 and partly an apology for not being able to see John. Who is John? It might be Alice’s brother John Wildman (1877-?). John was a plasterer and why would he be in London in 1915. Perhaps because there was a war on.