The Postcard
A Hi-Gloss View Series postcard that was published by Bamforth & Co. Ltd. of Holmfirth, Yorkshire. The card was posted in Morecambe using a 4d. stamp on Wednesday the 3rd. June 1970. It was sent to:
Mr. John Rutter,
1, Ossory Street,
Gt. Western Street,
Moss-Side,
Manchester.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear John,
We arrived here last
Saturday and began to
feel better with the
improved weather
conditions by the sea.
Hope you are taking
the top prizes at the
Whist.
Maybe I will be at
Mauldeth next Saturday.
Hoping you are in the
pink.
Tom."
Morecambe
Morecambe in Lancashire was a thriving seaside resort in the mid-20th. century. It was home to the largest Pontins resort in the country. While the resort of Blackpool attracted holiday-makers predominantly from the Lancashire mill towns, Morecambe had more visitors from Yorkshire (due to its railway connection) and Scotland.
Mill workers from Bradford and further afield in West Yorkshire holidayed at Morecambe, with some retiring there. This gave Morecambe the nickname "Bradford on Sea". Between 1956 and 1989, it was the home of the Miss Great Britain beauty contest.
Morecambe suffered a decades-long decline after a series of incidents that damaged tourism and the local economy. Two piers were lost: West End Pier was partly washed away in a storm in November 1977, and the remnants were demolished in 1978; Central Pier, damaged by fire in 1933, was removed in 1992.
Pontins closed in 1993. In 1994, The World of Crinkley Bottom attraction in Happy Mount Park closed only thirteen weeks after opening. The ensuing Blobbygate scandal, a financial disaster after projected visitor numbers did not materialise, led to a legal battle between Lancaster City Council and TV star Noel Edmonds, costing North Lancs taxpayers £2.6 million.
The closures of Bubbles, Morecambe's swimming pool, and the Frontierland fairground soon followed.
On the 5th. February 2004, there was a major loss of life in Morecambe Bay when at least 21 Chinese immigrant shellfish harvesters were drowned after they became trapped by the incoming tide.
In December 2017 a local general practitioner and community health activist claimed that children in Morecambe were suffering from malnourishment, and implied that cases of rickets had been observed as a consequence.
The "Morecambe Budget"
Enoch Powell made a speech in Morecambe on the 11th. October 1968 on the economy, setting out alternative, radical free-market policies that would later be called the Morecambe Budget.
Powell used the financial year 1968–69 to show how income tax could be halved from 8s 3d to 4s 3d in the pound (basic rate cut from 41% to 21%), and how capital gains tax could be abolished without reducing expenditure on defence or the social services.
These tax cuts required a saving of £2,855 million, and this would be funded by eradicating losses in the nationalised industries and denationalising the profit-making state concerns.
Also ending all housing subsidies except for those who could not afford their own housing; ending all foreign aid; ending all grants and subsidies in agriculture; ending all assistance to development areas; ending all investment grants; abolishing the National Economic Development Council; and abolishing the Prices and Incomes Board.
The cuts in taxation would also allow the state to borrow from the public to spend on capital projects such as hospitals and roads, and on the firm and humane treatment of criminals.
President Richard M. Nixon
So what else happened on the day that Tom posted the card?
Well, on the 3rd. June 1970, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announced in a nationwide television and radio address that American troops would be pulled back out of Cambodia after the achievement of "all our major military objectives", and that half of the 31,000 U.S. troops in Cambodia had been returned to fight in South Vietnam.
Ruth Sawyer
The day also marked the death in Lexington, Mass. at the age of 89 of the American children's author and adult fiction novelist Ruth Sawyer.
Ruth, who was born in Boston, Mass., is best known as the author of Roller Skates, which won the 1937 Newbery Medal. She received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1965 for her lifetime achievement in children's literature.
R. K. Mellon
R. K. Mellon also died on the 3rd. June 1970. He was an American financier and philanthropist. He was 70 years of age when he died.
Richard King Mellon, who was born on the 19th. June 1899, was commonly known as R.K.
The son of Richard B. Mellon and grandson of Thomas Mellon, he and his sister Sarah Mellon Scaife and cousins Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon-Bruce, were heirs to the Mellon fortune.
This included major holdings in Mellon Bank, Gulf Oil, and Alcoa.
In 1957, when Fortune prepared its first list of the wealthiest Americans, it estimated that the four cousins were all amongst the richest eight people in the United States, with fortunes of between $400 million and $700 million dollars each.
R.K. Mellon served as president and chairman of Mellon Bank. He also served on the board of trustees of the University of Pittsburgh over a span of several decades, and was a major benefactor to the university.