We are asked to gather 6-12 postcards that we may have received. I think those received from people on holidays have long since perished or been thrown away. The tradition in my time the 80/90s was to send a postcard when on holiday explaining if you were having a nice time, what the weather and food was like etc. Quite often as I recall I was back before the postcard arrived!
The internet, mobile phones etc now mean as a communication method on the back of a picturesque view from where you were staying. I think instead the postcard in modern times is bought by tourists as a reminder of the holiday or visit to a holiday location. This may be because they don't have a camera, cant recreate the scene on a postcard with a camera or because they have an instant reminder.
Postcard 1
Though now living in the Forest of Dean Gloucester, I grew up in Wonersh, Surrey leaving at age 21 to pursue a career. This image is of the small park next to Wonersh C of E church where many of my relations got married, including my brother. Though my brother had a summer wedding it was unfortunately a wet and rainy day with the images of his and his wife's day taken with people grouped inside the arch under the parapet that we both threw stones from. No doubt this irony was remembered and laughed about later that day. We often used to climb up and into the parapet at the top and throw small tint stones at passing vans. Those that stopped had drivers looking over the small walls either side not realising we were above laying down and un-observable. I don't condone this type of entertainment now but unfortunately succumbed as a young person. I've not been here for 24 years I think
Postcard 2
This appears to have been taken at about 90 degrees or so left of the position of the postcard image above. Though its not obvious the path leads to an arch through the 10ft high walls surrounding the church
Postcard 3
Taken the other side of the gatehouse in image 1. I used to do a paper-rounound along this round for 3 years I think keeping the same round.
Postcard 4
Following the road to the left in the postcard above will find this location. The image is incorrectly labelled the square. If you were to give this location you would call it the Pepperpot, the nickname given to the open shelter at the road junction. To the left of the Pepperpot was the local stores, the building to the right is the local pub The Grantley Arms which was my watering hole for a number of years, starting at least one year before I reached 18!
Postcard 5
A better view of the Grantley Arms on the right. I spent at least 8 years waiting at the spot bottom left og the image for coaches or buses to take me to the two schools in Cranleigh. There is a red phonebox to the left of the image we used to hide in when it was raining. On one of these mornings we witnessed a lorry for some reason in bed it self in the pub as it came round the corner. It gave us some amusement. In recent years an often run Lloyds Bank TV advert showed an image of the "pepperpot" similar to that above
Postcard 6
This postcard is from 1910 and the from the same photographer as most of those above.
Should postcards have been created of my village during my youth I wonder what fuure generations would make of them. Likely the same amazement at the clothes people wore and the cars captured in the images. However I hope the majority of the scene remains unchanged is also looked upon both favorably and fondly as I do and I can enjoy some of the memories that were created here.
Part 2
Graham Clarke said "“… the landscape photograph implies the act of looking as a privileged
observer so that, in one sense, the photographer of landscapes is always
the tourist, and invariably the outsider."
I think in my mind this could be both a truth and an untruth. I think Clarke makes his statement assuming that the photographer is a visitor to the area which he is photographing. The privileged he mentions I find less able to explain. Is this because the photographer has a limited amount of time to seek a view to capture? Is the privilege because the photographer can see the scene with his own eyes "in the flesh" and also capture it on film or digitally? This might be true if capturing scenes or memories from a location briefly visited.
In the case of the postcards above based upon the village I grew up in for 21 years had I taken these images I would not have felt an intruder nor a tourist. These postcard images were taken over 100 years ago in most cases yet are as intimate to me as if I had taken them myself. Very little had changed to the village I grew up in over 60 years later and my last visit to the village about 5 years ago 20 years on showed little had changed.
So in looking at the postcard images I feel privileged to be reminder of many, many memories but never as a tourist, nor of an outsider but most certainly as an insider. This perhaps ensures this postcards mean much more to me than as a tourist or outsider to my life growing up in this village.
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