Saving the copper ........ a 5/- bag from sometime in the 1940s

Saving the copper, date unknown

Now there will be those who mutter this is not really much to do with history.

But there I would disagree, because it is one of those small everyday objects which are so part of our lives that we give them no significance.

I came across this one in a collection of material from my dad.

It is a paper money bag for the National Provincial Bank and would have been used to bag pennies, halfpenny and farthings.

Now I don’t have a date but it will be before 1971 when we went decimal and adopted a new set of coins junking the old pounds shillings and pence.

Before 1971 the pound was made up of 240 pennies with 12 pennies making a shilling and 20 shillings making a pound.

All very bewildering for any one born after 1971 but pretty clear to me and those who can also remember Five Boys chocolate bars,  drinking Kia-Ora orange at the pictures, and Rin Tin Tin.

The National Provincial Bank had a long history starting up in 1833 before becoming the National Westminster Bank in 1970.

All of which gives little clue to a date for the bag except for the request “IN VIEW OF THE APPEALS MADE FOR THE ECONOMY OF PAPER WILL CUSTOMERS KINDLY RETURN ALL THESE BAGS TO THE BANK FOR RE-USE.”

Hotel Regina, Venice, circa 1950s

Of course such appeals I guess have come at regular intervals but I suspect this may date the bag to the Second World War or the years directly afterwards.

Now given the sort of chap my dad was it would not surprise me that this money bag had been sitting amongst his stuff from that time, before coming north to us.

It had been used to hold a series of hotel suitcase labels from the 1950s and these too in the fullness of time will come out to feature as stories for the blog.

In the meantime my 70 year old money bag will return to its place of safe storage, and I shall go rummaging for some pennies, and haipeni’s and may even turn up the odd three penny bit and sixpence.

And who knows may well come across more stories of the trivial kind.

Pictures; money bag, date unknown and hotel suitcase label, circa 1950s,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Celebrating the way we travelled ………

In an age of cheap air travel, package holidays, and reality tourism, the art of the hotel label has all but gone.

Once, whether it was a sea journey or motor holiday, you could expect to collect a shed load of labels, which if you so desired could be stuck on your luggage announcing to the world where you had gone and which posh place you had spent a brace of nights.

Dad had loads, but as a Continental coach driver for almost 40 years, that was just as it was.

He however never put them on his suitcases preferring to keep them safe, as a  reminder of where he had travelled.

I inherited them and they have appeared on the bog.

And now, courtesy of Ann Scott I have a lot more.

They will appear over the next few weeks accompanied by the story of the hotel from which they came.

At this point in time I have no idea if any of the hotels are still there, whether they have retained their name, and to what degree they still resemble the one Ann Visited.

And that is it  ………… history through luggage labels, not perhaps the most zippy title but it does the biz.

Location, Brindisi, Milan and Naples 

Pictures; the three from Italy, circa 1960s, from the collection of Ann Scott

The one with style ………….. the hotel by the mountains

Now as picture postcards go, this one of the Hotel Pitter is Salzburg has captured my imagination.

Hotel Pitter

It was one Dad must have picked up in his travels and sits with a few more of the same hotel, including the bierkeller.

Dad will have passed through the hotel on a stopover, as part of the guided tour of Vienna and the Austrian Tyrol, which Glenton Tours ran from the 1950s and 60s.

In all there were nine tours which ranged from Holland, the French and Italian Rivieras, to the Rhineland and Black Forest and the Swiss and Italian Lakes.

They ran through from the beginning of May to the end of September, and the brochure advised, that travelers “have the benefit of a courier as well as the services of a most carefully selected driver, [adding that]our many years of experience have proved that a women makes the best courier and that the combined efforts of male driver and female courier ensure a superb carefree holiday”.*

Dad, Elizabeth, the courier, and passengers

The cost included “your own personal seat, hotel accommodation including dinner and continental breakfast, luncheon throughout, as well taxes, service charges, gratuities to hotel staff, cross channel steamer fares and of course the multilingual courier and a guidebook”.

And the Vienna and Austrian Tyrol tour lasted for twelves days, cost £66, and took in the Rhineland, Bavaria, the Black Forest, France and Belgium with three nights in Vienna.

Pitterkeller 

And day three, started at Wiesbaden and concluded at Salzburg which the brochure conceded was “rather a long days’ drive, mostly along motorways, by passing Frankfurt. Wûrburg, Nûrnburgn and Munich, [but] you will think it worth while because it allows a precious extra night in Vienna”, and that night was spent in the Hotel Pitter.

So, I am not surprised that the postcard turns up in Dad’s collection, only that it looks much older than the 1950s, and could easily have been produced a decade or even two decades earlier.

The picture postcard

I suppose it might have been old stock, or like me the hotel just liked the stylized appearance and continued to use it.

The hotel is still there today but its online presence admits no such throwback.

Location; Salzburg

Pictures; picture post cards of the Pitter Hotel and Dad, Elizabeth, the courier and passengers, date unknown, from the collection of Andrew Simpson



*Glenton coach cruisers Britain and the Continent 1967, Glenton Tours, 397 Queen's Road New Cross Gate, London S.E.14

So was that Luxembourg? ............... holidays by hotel labels in the 1950s

Now I don’t even know if hotels still give away suitcase labels.

If they don’t that is a shame because I am sitting beside some of the ones my dad collected in his years as a coach driver and they are fascinating

Not that he ever stuck them on his suit cases, he just brought them home which may have been an earlier version of the tourist habit of collecting the soap and shampoo from the bathroom.

He was at the luxury end of the motor holiday trade and his passengers would whisked on a seven, nine or fifteen day tour of mainland Europe from the Benelux countries as far as the Swiss Alps and the Italian Lakes.

They would be fed and accommodated at good hotels, provided with a first class guide and had time off to wander as they wished.

But it was a fairly rigid timetable which has often prompted me to think if you dozed off or looked away long enough from the window you might well have missed an entire country.

It is not my idea of a holiday but was so successful that it kept Glenton Tours going from the 1920s well past the time Dad retired in 1982.

That said it was still a wonderful way of seeing new places allowing you to get a sense of what  made each country and town along the way that little bit different.

Today most of us just get on a plane and with in a couple of hours have arrived at the destination,  having spent the entire journey ordering a drink, wrestling with a packet of peanuts and pondering on what to buy from "the onboard offers."

Only after the bags have been collected and passport control completed do you get a sense of where you are which even then may be some what muted by the long wait for the holiday tour bus to fill up and set off.

All of which makes me think that the fifteen day coach holiday to the Italian Lakes, taking in a bit of France, lots of Luxembourg and Bellgium and northrn Italy has some merit.

And so for no other reason than I haven’t looked at these labels for half a century I shall post a few a week, and in the fullness of time will go looking for each of the hotels.

Pictures; hotel labels from the 1950s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Travelling Europe ………….. with a suitcase and a clutch of hotel labels

Now, history comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and today I am back with the humble luggage label.*

They were something I grew up with given that Dad’s job took him across the Continent from the beginning of May till the end of September.

Not that he ever used them on his suitcase, instead they sat in envelopes, to be taken out occasionally by me who was fascinated by the magic of the pictures and the destinations.

And now a full sixty years on I am admiring them all over again, more so because of the style of much of the artwork as well as the history behind them.

But the passage of time has been cruel and nearly 40 years stored in a cellar has resulted in some of them for ever being fused together, while others were just lost through neglect.

Still, enough have survived to give a flavor to that world of hotels and travelling during the middle decades of the last century.

The seasoned travelers could also add labels for the steam ships, which took passengers from mundane places of Calais and Antwerp to exotic destinations halfway around the world.

Travel often and far enough and your suitcase was an advert for the holidays you took.

But dad was not on holiday, instead his was the job of driving the coach that took his passengers from London, across the Continent as far as the Swiss and Italian Alps, along with the French Rivera, the Black Forest, and for good measure the Dutch tulips and windmills as well as Paris and a selection of European cities.

All of which meant he accumulated luggage labels from all over, and the fun has been to see just how many of these hotels still exist.

And the surprise is that many are still in business, retaining their old name if a little modified, from the grand Hotel Regina in Venice to the Pitter in Saltsburg and many more.

Of course, most will have undergone change, and I expect dad and his passengers would have wondered what Wi fi was, as well as marveling that each room would come with a television as standard.

Once or twice I have contacted some of the places, offering to share an image of their ancient hotel label, but none have been interested enough to reply.

But then most are now owned by corporations, with hotels across the world, and while the original name may have been retained, most will have added a brand title, and the interior will have taken on a uniformity, which is the same for Paris, Berlin or Rome.

Likewise, each in the chain will sit on the same company web site with little to distinguish its uniqueness and no hint of its distinct history.

Leaving me with just these old bits of their past, when each hotel commissioned their own artist to create something with style, and in some cases a hint of humour which made them stand out from the rest.

Location; across Europe









Pictures; luggage labels, circs 1940s-50s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hotel labels, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Hotel%20labels

Far away places ……..

I collect hotel luggage labels, which I know marks me off as odd, especially as I have never visited any of the hotels in the collection.

But then as most of them date from the 1950s and 60s, and given that I was born in 1949 it’s unlikely that I would have ever ordered a meal in the Semiramis in Cairo or the Palm Beach in Beirut.

Move on a decade and it just possible that I might have scrapped up enough to sit in the hotel lounge sipping a G&T and people watching.

That said the Lebanon was sliding into civil war and Beirut was fast becoming a battleground.

The surprise is that both these “luxury” hotels are still doing the business in the 21st century, with the Semiramis announcing that it is “located 0.9 km from Egyptian Antiquities Museum, guests of 5-star Intercontinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel may find a night club and loungers on-site. This venue is just 550 metres from Garden City.

The accommodation is placed in the centre of Cairo, a stroll away from Tahrir Square. It is set in the shopping area, a few steps from Downtown Cairo. Intercontinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel is a short drive from Mosque of Ibn Tulun.

The hotel offers luxurious rooms furnished with ironing facilities, direct dial phone and smoke detectors. Enjoy the magnificent view over the sunset. Showers, a bidet and slippers, as well as a kettle, a microwave and kitchenware are featured.

A bar serves a buffet breakfast. Thai meals are supplied at the gastronomic restaurant. At the on-site Poolside bar guests can relax and enjoy cold drinks. Nile Terrace offers a rich choice of Middle Eastern, Arabic and Egyptian dishes daily. The nearest underground station, Sadat, is about 400 metres away. The property has a rooftop swimming pool as well as steam baths, various massages and facials. A gym area and fitness are also part of the sport facilities available”.

While the Palm Beach informs possible clientele that it “is located on the famous Corniche. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea it is only 10 minutes from Beirut International Airport & few minutes walking distance from the Downtown”.

So that is it.

I am not sure hotels still do luggage labels, so I am grateful to Ann Scot Cooks who collected these in the 1960s and donated them to the collection, as a timely reminder of how travel used to be.

Location; Cairo and Beirut, circa 1960s

Pictures; the Semiramis, and Palm Beech Hotels, circa 1960s, from the collection of Ann Scot Cooks

If its Tuesday it is Lake Garda ........ travelling by hotel labels in the 1950s ..... part 1

Now I don’t even know if hotels still give away suitcase labels.

If they don’t that is a shame because I am sitting beside some of the ones my dad collected in his years as a coach driver and they are fascinating

Not that he ever stuck them on his suit cases, he just brought them home which may have been an earlier version of the tourist habit of collecting the soap and shampoo from the bathroom.

He was at the luxury end of the motor holiday trade and his passengers would be whisked on a seven, nine or fifteen day tour of mainland Europe from the Benelux countries as far as the Swiss Alps and the Italian Lakes.

They would be fed and accommodated at good hotels, provided with a first class guide and had time off to wander as they wished.

But it was a fairly rigid timetable which has often prompted me to think that if you dozed off or looked away long enough from the window you might well have missed an entire country.

It is not my idea of a holiday but was so successful that it kept Glenton Tours going from the 1920s well past the time Dad retired in 1982.

That said it was still a wonderful way of seeing new places allowing you to get a sense of what  made each country and town along the way that little bit different.

Today most of us just get on a plane and with in a couple of hours have arrived at the destination,  having spent the entire journey ordering a drink, wrestling with a packet of peanuts and pondering on what to buy from "the onboard offers."

Only after the bags have been collected and passport control completed do you get a sense of where you are which even then may be some what muted by the long wait for the holiday tour bus to fill up and set off.

All of which makes me think that the fifteen day coach holiday to the Italian Lakes, taking in a bit of France, lots of Luxembourg and Bellgium and northrn Italy has some merit.

And so for no other reason than I haven’t looked at these labels for half a century I shall post a few a week, and in the fullness of time will go looking for each of the hotels.

Pictures; hotel labels from the 1950s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The luggage label, a view of the Grand Canal and the story of a hotel

There is always something special about coming across a place that has a link to your family.

In the case of  The Westin Europa & Regina Hotel in Venice it was where Dad stayed in the 1950s and this I know because we have the luggage label.

I say the label but it is one of a ten that he took away from Venice and never used along with a selection from other hotels across Europe.

Not that he ever stuck them on his suit case; he just brought them home which may have been an earlier version of the tourist habit of collecting the soap and shampoo from the bathroom.

He was at the luxury end of the motor holiday trade and his passengers would be whisked on a seven, nine or fifteen day tour of mainland Europe from the Benelux countries as far as the Swiss Alps and the Italian Lakes.

They would be fed and accommodated at good hotels, provided with a first class guide and had time off to wander as they wished.

And once, and possibly quite a few times the end route for one of those holiday tours was Venice and the Regina Hotel.

I can’t be sure when dad was there but I am fairly confident it will be the 1950s or early ‘60s.

We almost stayed there, but on a whim chose not to head into Venice and so missed the opportunity to pass through the hotel lobby that he would have occupied over a half century before.

The hotel has a long history and was once two palaces, one of which became first a theatre where Rossini’s first opera was performed and later still as a cinema shoed the first projection of the Lumière Brothers' films.

Now I have no idea how much of that history Dad knew but as a good tour guide, he and his courier would have done their homework.

So one day we will get to Venice, stand in the hotel lobby and give a nod to Dad as we gaze down at the Grand Canal which acts as a backdrop.

Location; The Westin Europa & Regina Hotel, Venice

Pictures; The Westin Europa & Regina Hotel, Venice, 2017 courtesy of the hotel and a luggage label circa 1950s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Stories from the attic ...... part 6 ........ travelling across Europe with my dad

To be accurate it was our cellar rather than the attic, but the principle remains the same, which is that all sorts of stories can be conjured up from the bits and pieces we carefully store away and then forget.

Glenton Tours circa 1956

In our case, it was two leather suitcases, which had accompanied dad on his travels across the Continent, during his drive as a coach driver, transporting happy passengers on sightseeing tours from Antwerp to Paris, to the Swiss and Italian Lakes and the French and Italian Rivera.

Along the way he picked up lots of luggage labels, form hotels.

Dad being dad, chose instead to collect them, storing them carefully in envelopes, which is how we inherited them.

Over the years I have plundered the collection to write about places as varied as Venice, Paris, Nancy, and Brussels.*

But until yesterday I had missed a group of six identical one’s advertising Glenton Tours, which was the tour company he worked for, for over 40 years.

Venice, cicra 1950s

The firm had begun in the 1920s when an estate agent settled a debt with a customer by accepting a coach and that started “Glenton Motor Coach Holiday Tours.”

Dad worked for them from the very beginning and finally retired in 1987 having driven their coaches around Britain and Europe from the early 1930s.

The tours were all inclusive, offering “first class accommodation” and the “Chauffeur-Couriers have been chosen after exacting tests of their reliability and skill and give every attention to travellers.”***

 The tours lasted for anything between 7 and 15 days.

For £45 Tour C7 in 1965 offered nine days to the Swiss and Italian Lakes, leaving London on the Saturday, staying in Brussels on the Sunday night and travelling on to Lake Lucerne on the Monday, then later in the week to Lake Maggiore and then in to Switzerland and back via Burgundy to London.

Dad and Elizabeth, circa 1959

Of course it is easy today to sneer at an experience where everything was provided and if you failed to look out of the window you might miss a country, but in an age before the internet with television still in its infancy this was a relatively cheap way to see places which would otherwise just be a picture in a book.

And this was value for money given that the national average wage in 1965 was £26.

There are still plenty of travel companies offering this sort of holiday but back in the late 1940’s and ‘50s this was an experience just opening up for thousands who were beginning to enjoy the first taste of consumer prosperity.

St Anton, date unknown

They are as much an indication of that new Britain as the washing machine, television and motor car.

And given the stories that will tumble from these treasures, Peter and I have embarked on the next project which will be to use those objects left in cellars, attics and garages for the new book, which we have called The Lost Stories of Chorlton-cum-Hardy In Our Attics, Cellars, Garages and Sheds.

We are confident that there will be plenty of people with their own treasures and stories which they would like to be included.

Leaving me just to make the appeal for objects.

You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog or through Facebook, telling us just what you have and its importance to you and your family.

Location; across Europe

Pictures; Luggage labels, 1950-1968, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the box of treasures from the book cover, courtesy of Linda Rigby





*Hotel labels, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=hotel+labels&max-results=20&by-date=true


**Glenton Tours, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Glenton%20Tours

***Glenton Tours Brochures, 1951-1968

Hotel labels and holiday badges ......... how we show off where we go

Now I have been following my dad around Europe in the 1950s using the hotel suitcase labels that he collected.

They are fascinating little bits of our history and I shall close with one last one which was from Austria.

And I am minded to go looking for the hotels themselves.

But that will be for another time.

In the meantime I shall move a few decades forward and close with a series of holiday badges from the collection of Stephen Marland and in time no doubt explore these in more detail.

The badge has been around a long time but with with the arrival of those fairly inexpensive badge making machines almost any one can knock out a shed load on almost anything, from the closure of the local pet shop  to a birthday and of course a souvenir of a day by the sea.

So I shall leave you to scrutinize Stephen's collection and perhaps offer up some of your own for the blog.



Pictures; suitcase label Austria circa 1955, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and holiday  badges  courtesy of Stephen Marland