Saturday 22 April 2023

News from Huddersfield of Manchester, hot water bottles and much more

Now in the great age of the picture postcard, you could send a card in the morning confident it would be there by later in the day.

All of which made the picture postcard the text message of its time.

In the case of this one which was sent from Huddersfield to Scotland the message and the picture of a Blackcap would have been on the door mat of New Lanark Cottage for breakfast.

It was posted sometime before 8 in the evening of August 24, 1939 by Joe who signed himself “Your obedient husband”.

He had been in Manchester but was glad to be back, and went on to tell his wife that he was about to put the hot bottles in the bed.

And that intrigued me and will prompt me to go looking for the weather report for August 24, 1939 to check out whether it was unseasonably cold that month.

Or perhaps it was just Huddersfield that was cold, or this might just be what they did every night.

We will never know.  That said I do know the bird on the front is a Blackcap which according to the description on the card is   “so called from the glossy black cap.  His song, heard early in spring is very melodious.”

And that is that.

Location; Huddersfield

Picture; postcard 1939, from the collection of Linda Rigby

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