The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by Beckett of Overstrand.
The card was posted in Overstrand on Saturday the 16th. April 1910 to:
Mrs. G. Edwards,
'Hollyhurst',
Watton Lane,
Water Orton,
Nr. Birmingham.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"We return home Tuesday
next. We have spent a
delightful holiday, the
weather has been glorious.
Hope you and yours are
well.
Are you coming to see me
this year?
Sad about the Brussels
Exhibition, we shall not
see it.
Love to all,
Nellie Brock."
The Brussels International Exposition of 1910 was a world's fair held in Brussels, Belgium, from the 23rd. April to the 1st. November 1910. This was just thirteen years after Brussels' previous world's fair. It received 13 million visitors, covered 88 hectares (220 acres) and lost 100,000 Belgian Francs.
Overstrand
Overstrand is a village (population 1,030) on the north coast of Norfolk, two miles east of Cromer. It was once a modest fishing station, but in the latter part of the 19th. century it was catapulted into prominence, and became known as “the village of millionaires”.
The village's name means 'Ridge Shore', to contrast with nearby Sidestrand.
The London journalist and travel writer Clement Scott came to Overstrand in 1883 and christened the area ‘’Poppyland.’’ He wrote about the church tower on the cliff edge and its “Garden of Sleep”. While in Overstrand he stayed at the Mill House with miller Alfred Jermy and his daughter Louie, who became “the Maid of the Mill” in his articles about ‘’Poppyland’’.
Scott had many London contacts in the theatrical world, and his writings led a number of them and others from London society to come to Overstrand. Some bought land in the village and had houses built there, and for a while the village was the place to visit. A large hotel was built on the cliff edge, though this slid into the sea in the 1950's.
The Edwardian architect Sir Edwin Lutyens worked at Overstrand, designing Overstrand Hall for Charles William Mills, 2nd. Baron Hillingdon. He also designed The Pleasaunce for Cyril Flower, 1st Baron Battersea as well as the Methodist Church. The large houses of the gentry have largely passed from private ownership to other uses.
Overstrand railway station was on the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway between Cromer and North Walsham. It is now closed.
The Overstrand biplane bomber was named after the village, having been made at the Boulton & Paul aircraft factory in Norwich in the early 1930's.
Coastal Erosion
As with much of the Norfolk coast, erosion was and continues to be a major problem. Clifton Way is an experimental site; its sea defences include riprap (at £1,300 a boulder, predominantly shipped from Norway), wooden groynes, revetments, gabions and Offshore Reefs.
The cliffs of soft boulder clay slump because of water running through the clay, and the resulting material on the beach is removed by the succeeding high tides. In the neighbouring village of Sidestrand, the church was moved back from the cliff edge in the 19th. century, although the tower of the church was left standing on the cliff top.
Mary Treadgold
So what else happened on the day that Nellie posted the card?
Well, the 16th. April 1910 marked the birth of Mary Treadgold.
Mary was an English author of books for children and adults, a literary editor and a BBC producer. She won the Carnegie Medal for British children's books in 1941.
Treadgold was born at 51 Woodberry Crescent, Muswell Hill, Essex. Her father John was a stockbroker and a Member of the London Stock Exchange, and the family was comfortably off.
Mary attended Ginner-Mawer School of Dance and Drama (1916–22), Challoner's School (1921–1923), and St Paul's Girls' School, London (1923–1928), before going on to Bedford College, London from 1930 to 1936, where she graduated with an MA in English Literature.
After leaving university, Treadgold entered publishing, working first for Raphael Tuck & Sons and later at Heinemann's as their first children's editor. In her position Treadgold frequently read stories about ponies and pony clubs. She was generally dismayed by their quality, and decided to resign in order to write her own pony story.
She began We Couldn't Leave Dinah while confined in an air raid shelter during the Battle of Britain between September and December 1940. It is the story of the Templeton children and their friends who live on a fictional island in the English Channel, and who are faced with leaving their ponies behind during their evacuation and the island's subsequent German occupation.
The book drew on Treadgold's childhood experiences of the Channel Islands. It was published by Jonathan Cape in 1941, and Treadgold won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. It was published in America in 1942 as Left Till Called For. It is now out of print.
At the end of 1940 Mary moved to work at the BBC as a literary editor and producer in various sections of the General Overseas Service, sharing an office with Eric Blair (George Orwell) and forming a strong friendship with Una Marson, the Jamaican writer, editor and feminist.
Of the twenty years that Mary spent at the BBC, eleven were as literary editor of Books to Read, before she eventually left to concentrate on her writing.
No Ponies (1946) is set in post-war France, while The Polly Harris (1948) is the sequel to We Couldn't Leave Dinah, and is set in post-war London, where the Templeton children become involved in terrorist bombings and smuggling.
The Winter Princess (1962) concerns the visit of a young African princess to a grace and favour apartment at Hampton Court where she meets four English children. Marcus Crouch described it as:
"Perhaps the most delightful book
by a most talented writer. It makes an
effective contribution to the race question
because there is no mention of it."
Treadgold wrote a trilogy based on a house called The Heron: The Heron Ride, Return to the Heron, and Journey from the Heron. The first two volumes were written in the early 1960's, and the last in the series was completed in 1981.
Treadgold lived in London for most of her life. She died of cancer on the 14th. May 2005 at St. Teresa's Nursing Home in Kensington, aged 95. She never married.
