Now that I guess is not surprising given that they were commercial photographs which appeared on postcards through the late 19th and into 20th centuries.
And once a company had a winner the image just kept being used. In some cases they were sold on or offered to local businesses and with the passage of time many were retouched and even given a colour tint.
The longevity of some can be counted in decades, and companies were not averse to reissuing a card for Christmas with a seasonal message, printed over a scene of the township in high summer.
I wrote about Tuck and Sons yesterday and all of our six have appeared in the blog before but together over the next six or so days it will be fun to explore them again and in some cases focus on the messages rather than just the image.
Our first is of Wilbraham Road on that stretch from the Albany/Corkland junction looking down towards Barlow Moor Road.
To our left on the corner is Gable Nook once the doctor’s surgery and next to it the three houses which were bombed in 1940 and replaced twenty years later by the modern post office.
And so the message on the back which was sent by Marie to Annie in late 1914.
It begins with the usual pleasantries about Annie’s health but concludes with “hope you are well enough to hear all the war news.”
And that is what lifts this card above the rest and at the same time confirms the importance of this type of source.
We may not be told any more but what a wonderful link with a conflict which has now passed out of living memory, but here is written about as a continuing event.
Pictures; Wilbraham Road, from the series Chorlton-cum-Hardy, issued by Tuck & Sons, November 1913 courtesy of TuckDB http://tuckdb.org/history
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