Them that goes to sea

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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 hotel in 1924 was wealthy enough to have sailed in her? A photo in the Francis Frith collection shows a very imposing Victorian hotel covered in ivy, looking a bit unloved by 1924, like an impoverished gentlewoman who still wore a long gown with a corset and hoop, and looking very out of place in the roaring 20s.  



And the "bloke" that I thought ordered the beer was in fact Mrs Emily A Ducksbury, widow of Josiah Samuel Ducksbury, late owner of the hotel. By 1939 she owned a hotel in Staines, Middlesex, run by her daughter and son-in-law Mr and Mrs Henry Racine-Jaques. Henry was an early aviator, earning a flying certificate in 1914 on a Bristol Biplane, and later served in the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War. Violet died just after WW2 and Henry emigrated to Australia. 





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