The Postcard
A Comique Series Donald McGill postcard published by the Inter-Art Company of Florence House, Barnes, London SW.
The card was posted in Shanklin, I. O. W. using a 1d. stamp on Tuesday the 1st. August 1922.
It was sent to:
Mrs. S. Smale
29a, Eynham Road,
Wood Lane,
London.
The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"c/o S. M. Clarke,
G.P.O.,
Shanklin,
I. O/W.
Dear Ma,
Arrived here quite safe.
This is a jolly fine place.
Our camp is on a cliff
overlooking the sea.
We go bathing every
morning & evening.
My allowance has not
yet run out; I expect I
will spend most of it on
films.
Will write later.
Lots of love,
Bert."
Shanklin
Shanklin is a popular seaside resort on the Isle of Wight. Its main attractions are the sandy beach, and the Old Village at the top of a wooded ravine called Shanklin Chine.
The Esplanade along the beach is mainly occupied by hotels and restaurants, and is one of the most tourist-oriented parts of the town.
Shanklin has two beaches: Hope Beach and Small Hope Beach. Small Hope Beach has many beach huts available for hire and also a small café.
Above Hope Beach is the Esplanade which has traditional attractions including an amusement arcade, a crazy golf course and a children's play area. There is a cliff lift from the seafront to the top of the cliff.
The pier from which the photo was taken was destroyed in the Great Storm of 1987. The pier used to have a theatre at which many famous performers appeared, including Paul Robeson, Richard Tauber and Arthur Askey (his daughter attended a local boarding school).
The Summerland Amusement Arcade on the seafront was once a seaplane hangar which used to house Campania flying boats of the Nizam of Hyderabad's Squadron.
Much of the seafront was cleared in WW2 bombing.
Shanklin Chine contains a section of the "Operation Pluto" pipeline which ran across the Isle of Wight and out from Shanklin across the English Channel to supply fuel to the D-Day beaches in Normandy.
Shanklin's only theatre is at the top of the High Street.
Donald McGill
Donald Fraser Gould McGill, who was born on the 28th. January 1875, was an English graphic artist whose name has become synonymous with the genre of saucy seaside postcards that were sold mostly in small shops in British coastal towns.
The cards mostly feature an array of attractive young women, fat old ladies, drunken middle aged men, honeymoon couples and vicars. He has been called 'The King of the Saucy Postcard', and his work is collected for his artistic skill, its power of social observation, and earthy sense of humour.
Even at the height of his fame he only earned three guineas a design, but today his original artwork can fetch thousands of pounds.
Donald McGill - The Early Years
McGill was born in London. He lost a foot in a school rugby accident, and spent most of his life in the Blackheath area, living at 5 Bennett Park, London SE3 – a blue plaque location.
He was a naval draughtsman until his career in postcards began accidentally in 1904 when an in-law encouraged him after seeing an illustrated get-well card he had made for a sick nephew. Within a year it was his full-time occupation.
McGill spent his working life creating the distinctive colour-washed drawings which were then reproduced as postcards.
He ranked his output according to their vulgarity as mild, medium and strong, with strong being much the best sellers. His family, however, was steadfastly respectable. He said of his two daughters:
"They ran like stags whenever
they passed a comic postcard
shop".
McGill himself was an outwardly conventional family man, and his neighbours knew little of his daily work. However the area undoubtedly had its share of parlour-maids, nannies, and charladies, city gents, policemen, curious postmen and innocent clergy, all of which were to feature in his postcards.
On a TV programme in 1957 McGill confessed that his postcards were ‘vulgar sometimes, but just a bit of fun.’ However whilst spending his working days designing comic postcards, McGill spent his leisure time in the local library studying anthropology.
McGill always said that he didn’t understand the double-entendre, but then he said he never went to the seaside. However a relative interviewed in 2006 said that she remembered his frequent visits to the sea-side, so no doubt he spoke with tongue in cheek.
Donald McGill and The Great War
During the First World War he produced anti-German propaganda in the form of humorous postcards. They reflected on the war from the attitude, as he saw it, of the men serving, and the realities facing their families at home.
Cards dealing with the so-called "Home Front" covered issues such as rationing, home service, war profiteers, spy scares and interned aliens. Recruitment and "slackers" were other topics covered.
Many cards were designed to appeal to the soldier who wished to send a card home to his sweetheart, and these cards showed couples.
McGill's cards also showed soldiers in training, and there were many light-hearted jokes about the Scottish soldier and his kilt. A few cards showed images of nursing sisters, and one showed three female munitions workers.
There were relatively few cards depicting soldiers in action, and some depicted men in the Navy. Only a few of the military-themed cards were serious, such as one showing a British Red Cross medic caring for a wounded German soldier.
Donald McGill and Censorship
Approaching 80, McGill fell foul of several local censorship committees which culminated in a major trial at Lincoln Assizes on the 15th. July 1954 for breaking the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. The action was brought resulting from the publication and sale of his postcards when he was unwillingly persuaded to plead guilty to four charges laid against him.
D. Constance and Company Ltd. the publishers were fined £50 with £25 costs, and McGill was fined £10. Half a million postcards had to be destroyed.
The wider result was a devastating blow to the saucy postcard industry; with many retailers cancelling orders. Several smaller publishers were made bankrupt as they survived on very small margins.
In the late 1950's, the level of censorship eased off and the market recovered. In 1957, McGill gave evidence before a House of Commons Select Committee set up to amend the 1857 Act.
Donald McGill and the Kipling Joke
One of Donald's postcards features a bookish man and an embarrassed pretty woman sitting under a tree, with the caption:
"Do you like Kipling?"
"I don't know, you naughty
boy, I've never kippled!".
This card holds the world record for selling the most copies, at over 6 million.
McGill's Kipling joke is used in a 1962 episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, in a scene with Elly May Clampett (Donna Douglas) and Sonny Drysdale (Louis Nye).
The Death of Donald McGill
McGill produced an estimated 12,000 designs, of which 200 million copies are estimated to have been printed. He died at the age of 87 on the 13th. October 1962 with all his designs for the 1963 season already prepared. He was laid to rest in Streatham Park Cemetery in an unmarked grave.
Despite their wide circulation, McGill earned no royalties from his designs; in his will, his estate was valued at just £735.
The Donald McGill Blue Plaque
On the 20th. September 1977 there took place the unveiling of a blue plaque in memory of Donald McGill at his Victorian House 5, Bennett Park, Blackheath, London, where he lived from 1931 to 1939:
'Donald McGill 1875-1962
Postcard Cartoonist
lived here'
At the ceremony young men in striped blazers and straw boaters paraded with scantily dressed bathing belles, saucy maids, crestfallen curates and the sort of red nosed characters which McGill made his own.
The Donald McGill Postcard Museum
On the 10th. July 2010, McGill's grandson Patrick Tumber opened the Donald McGill Postcard Museum, created by James Bissell-Thomas in Ryde, Isle of Wight. In 1953, Ryde had witnessed police raids on five shops in the town and the seizure of over 5,000 postcards, the majority by McGill.
The Balfour Note
So what else happened on the day that Bert posted the card to his mother?
Well, on the 1st. August 1922, Great Britain published the Balfour Note. This declared that Great Britain would give up reparations claims, as well as claims on other Allies, to the extent that the United States would do the same with respect to Great Britain's debts.
The Note was met with great anger by the Americans as it made them appear to be greedy and an obstacle to international recovery.
The Auch Train Crash
Also on that day, 40 people were killed and 50 injured when two trains carrying pilgrims to Lourdes collided near Auch.
In all, almost 500 passengers were on the two trains, both of which were climbing uphill to Tarbes and Lourdes.
According to the investigation:
"The first train was too heavily laden and
unable to climb a sharp gradient, and the
driver decided to return to Agen and ran
down the hill backward without regard to
the second train."
Pilgrims don't seem to have a lot of luck where train travel is concerned:
-- On the 6th. October 1972, near Saltillo, Mexico, a train carrying religious pilgrims derailed and caught fire, killing 204 and injuring over 1,000.
-- On the 15th. January 1989, at Maizdi Khan, Bangladesh, a train carrying Muslim pilgrims crashed head-on with a mail train, killing at least 110 people and injuring as many as 1,000. Many people were riding on the roof of the trains and between the cars.
-- On the 24th. July 2013, just outside of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, a passenger train carrying pilgrims derailed and crashed. At least 78 people were killed, and dozens more were injured.
-- On the 19th. August 2013, at Bihar, India, 37 Hindu pilgrims were killed while crossing the tracks near a remote station in eastern India when an express train crashed into them. After the crash, surviving pilgrims dragged out the train's driver and beat him to death. The crowd also set the train on fire.
-- On the 31st. October 2019, 73 people were killed and 48 others injured when a fire completely destroyed three coaches of a train travelling near the town of Liaquatpur in Pakistan. The dead and injured were mainly pilgrims from the Bismillah Mosque, on their way to a religious festival near Lahore. The fire started when a gas canister was used to cook breakfast on the heavily overcrowded train.
Travelling by boat is also not without its risks for pilgrims. On the 25th. November 1908, a fire broke out on the SS Sardinia as she was leaving Malta's Grand Harbour, resulting in the ship's grounding and the deaths of at least 118 people.
The ship was carrying Moroccan pilgrims on their way to Mecca. It is believed that a cooking fire on deck accidentally ignited nitrate in one of the ship's cargo holds, resulting in a number of explosions and causing the ship to run aground.
Horatio Bottomley
Also on the 1st. August 1922, the House of Commons voted to expel MP Horatio Bottomley, the editor of John Bull magazine and a representative of the Hackney South constituency.
Horatio was expelled following his 23rd. May conviction on felony charges of fraud.
