The Postcard
A Cameracolour Series postcard that was printed and published by J. Salmon Ltd. of Sevenoaks. The card has a divided back.
The card was posted in Exmouth on the 15th. June 1967. The postmark states:
'Exmouth Devon.
Sea Sands Scenery.
Colour Guide P.O. 1/-
Room 'A' Information
Bureau'.
The card was posted to:
Miss B. Wadelin,
54, Bower Street,
Bedford.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Having a nice relaxing
holiday.
The weather has been
glorious ever since we
came.
Did not ring you before
we came, as I was not
well, and thought that
I would not get away,
but feeling much better
now.
Will ring when we get
back.
Love,
Hilda & Len".
J. Salmon Ltd.
Alas, J. Salmon no longer produce postcards. Having churned out small coloured rectangles of card from its factory in Kent for more than 100 years, the company stopped publishing postcards in 2017.
The fifth-generation brothers who still ran the company sent a letter to their clients in the autumn of 2017, advising them that the presses would cease printing at the end of 2017, with their remaining stock being sold off throughout the following year.
The firm’s story began in 1880, when the original J. Salmon acquired a printing business on Sevenoaks high street, and produced a collection of twelve black and white scenes of the town.
In 1912, the business broke through into the big time by commissioning the artist Alfred Robert Quinton (1853 - 1934), who produced 2,300 scenes of British life for them up until his death.
From Redruth to King’s Lynn, his softly coloured, highly detailed watercolours of rosy milkmaids, bucolic pumphouses and picturesque harbour towns earned him a place in the hearts of the public, despite references to his 'chocolate-box art' by some art critics.
J. Salmon also produced photographs and cheery oils of seaside imagery captioned with a garrulous enthusiasm: “Eat More Chips!”, “Sun, Sand & Sea”, “We’re Going Camping!”
It commissioned the comic artist Reg Maurice (who often worked under the pseudonym Vera Paterson), to produce pictures of comically bulbous children with cutesy captions, alongside the usual stock images of British towns.
It was this century’s changing habits – and technology – that did for Salmon. Co-managing director Charles Salmon noted:
“People are going for shorter breaks,
not for a fortnight, so you’re back home
before your postcards have arrived."
He barely needed to say that Instagram and Facebook had made their product all but redundant, almost wiping out the entire industry in a decade.
Michelle Abadie, co-director of the John Hinde Collection, said:
“When I heard the news, I was
actually surprised they still existed."
John Hinde was once J Salmon’s biggest rival; it sold 50-60 million postcards a year at its peak in the 1960's, but it, too, shuttered four years previously. The licensing for its rich archive of images was sold off, and repurposed in art books.
However, in one sense, the death of the postcard is overstated. Like vinyl records, our fetish for the physical objects we left behind is already making its presence felt.
Michelle Abadie points out:
“If you go into Waterstones now, they
sell lots of postcards of book covers.
The idea itself isn’t dead – as a
decorative object, people still want
them.”
The Closure of Bases in Libya
So what else happened on the day that Hilda and Len posted the card?
Well, on the 15th. June 1967, Libya's Foreign Minister, Ahmad Bishti summoned the ambassadors from the United States and United Kingdom to his office.
He told them that the Libyan candidate had voted to demand the closure of their bases there, in retaliation for American and British support of Israel during the Six-Day War.
The main U.S. facility, Wheelus Air Base, housed 10,000 servicemen of the 17th. U.S. Air Force and their families, and was located five miles from Tripoli. Britain's Royal Air Force maintained a staging post at RAF El Adem.
Phosphate
Also on that day, the British Phosphate Commission signed an agreement with the government of Nauru, an island in the central Pacific, allowing Nauru to buy back the phosphate for 20 million Australian dollars over a three-year period.
After independence, Nauru finished payment more than a year ahead of schedule, and control was turned over to Nauru on the 1st. July 1970.
Procul Harem
Also on the 15th. June 1967, the Number One chart hit record in the UK was 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' by Procul Harem.
