Wish You Were Here

A scruffy card kept with reverence for 130 years. It is one of only two remaining items of correspondence between my great great grandfather and his cousin John, who emigrated to the USA in 1834. The cousin arrived in the USA a poor man, and died very wealthy, having become a well known building contractor in Chicago. John Sollitt, the sender of the card, was a carpenter trained by his maternal grandfather in Yorkshire. John's father, was a descendent of refugee Huguenots. He worked as stone mason on restorations of York Minster and Westminster Abbey. The town of Sollitt is now just a small blip to the south of metropolitan Chicago, but John Sollitt paid for the railway line to go through this small settlement, so they named it after him. John lost his first two wives to cholera and married his third wife in his 60s and lived until he was 81. He raised 11 children.  Charles, my great great grandfather died relatively young, aged 58, only 6 months after he received this card. This l

In 1914, just before the outbreak of the Great War, a 20 year old woman set sail from Liverpool to Canada.  She had grown up on the estate of a large stately home. She was already an experienced parlour maid and she was now venturing to join the staff of a wealthy industrialist in Ontario. Her eldest brother was already working for him, and he paid for her passage. Her mother thought she would never see her again. In fact, for the next 70 years she travelled that sea route many times to visit her home village, bringing her new husband to meet her siblings. This young woman was my great aunt, and she emigrated alone on the RMS Alaunia. The Alaunia had only been launched a few months earlier, and was one of three ships built for Cunard in 1913 on the Clyde. Her maiden voyage was in December of 1913. Two months later my great aunt sailed with her to start her new life. She must have been very mindful of the iceberg terror when sailing into Canadian waters; icebergs that had sunk the Titan

It didn't take me long to realise that people who wrote postcards often grabbed any card that was to hand to send with their hasty message. I bought this card fully expecting a wonderful message of adventure and glamour on the reverse. After all, it was Cunard's Mauretania. She sailed elegantly between the UK and New York, and for many years held the speed record between the two points. She could carry over 2000 passengers, and here she was in all her glory on a postcard sent in 1924. However, the message on the reverse, far from detailing champagne lunches and leisurely strolls along the deck, requested the following: "Kindly forward 9 Gall(on) cask of usual 8d" Signed EA Ducksbury, Elms Hotel, Morecambe.  It is addressed to the well known brewery of Wm Younger in Edinburgh. The Elms Hotel was in the popular northern seaside town of Morecambe.  Perhaps a guest had once sailed to New York on this marvellous vessel and left the card behind? Or maybe the owner of the ho

Collecting postcards is an activity I came by honestly; at the turn of the 20th century my family sent a lot of them, and being the only child of an only child of an only child, the folder of cards written between my grandmother and her sisters and brothers landed with me. It was the text messaging of the early 1900s, written on the back of random bits of card, posted at 4pm, arriving at 10am the next day. Many were a ha'penny way of telling my great grandmother what time they would arrive for lunch on their day off from whatever stately home they were working in at the time. Young and poor, reuniting with their parents and siblings for modest home food and catching up on the news of everyone in their village was something to look forward to, after the hard drudgery of the rest of the week. I realised quickly that there are several million more messages out there, scribbled in pencil on beautiful cards, whacky, saucy and strange cards, all building a picture of a time which is long