When the historic picture postcards …. turn out to be street grids

Once along time ago you could follow a friend’s holiday adventures by the picture postcards they sent back.

Salamanca Firefighters, 2026

Later still the postcards became multiple photographs via a mobile, which were both instant and much cheaper.

For as we know sending cards from holiday resorts were fraught with possible mishaps, from spending too much on the stamps to the disappointment of arriving home a week before the cards arrived.

But not so with one of my friends who knowing I collect street furniture regularly sends pictures of trams, street grids and road signs as well as  public benches along with those impressive municipal pavement covers.

It has been a feature of his holidays for several years, and this year is no exception.

So, I have tracked his route south through Spain to Salamanca and Cordoba finishing at a folk festival on the Algarve in Portugal.

Many of these bits of street furniture include civic emblems, nod  to their purpose and even little reminders of the geography.

Salamanca Sanitation Services, 2026

And of course, along the way I have picked up the German for tram, the Spanish for firefighter and the Portuguese for letter. *

Ayuntamiento de Cordoba,  Alumbrado Publico, 2026 

And if that isn’t enough many of them are little examples of public works of art.

My favourites are the worn but still legible cover of Salamanca Firefighters, followed by that of the Salamanca Sanitation Services and the Cordoba City Council’s cover for Public Lighting.

Leaving just that blue the Portuguese letter box which is a timely reminder that not everything letters and telephones is painted red.

Location; Salamanca, Cordoba, the Algarve

PIctures; Street Furnitue, 2026, from a travelling pal

* Straßenbahn ...tram, Bomberos ....Fireghters, Saneamiento ... Santitaion Services, Ayuntamiento de Cordoba.... Cordoba City Council,    Alumbrado Publico .... Public Lighting, Cartas .... letters

Blue post box, 2026

Pictures from Porto ………… and a bit of street furniture from around the corner

Or as we often say in our house … “a wall of sardines, date stamped, and a bit of street furniture brought to you by Fucoli-Somepal”.

A wall of sardines, 2025

Now I have no idea sitting here in Chorlton as to why these tins of sardines each bear a different date, other than you can search for the year you were born and take home the contents ready to eat on the anniversary of your birth.

And that was the assumption of my pal who sent over the image on his trip through the Portuguese town of Porto.

SANEAMENTO, 2025

That said there will be someone who has taken a similar picture and has the knowledge of just why a company would date stamp their tins of sardines.

Happily, I am more at home with the metal street cover which bears the words SANEAMENTO which is Portuguese for sanitation, and underneath it Fucoli which is the company that makes such essential street items.

Their web site announces that “At Fucoli-Somepal, we pride ourselves on providing durable and long-lasting ductile iron products for wastewater applications. Our expertly engineered solutions are designed to perform exceptionally well, even in the most challenging conditions”.  Added to which their products are “100% made in Europe”.*

This Porto “ductile iron product” is a grand addition to my collection of street furniture which extends way beyond street covers to include stink poles, vending machines, and ghost signs, as well as redundant telephone kiosks, Lucy Boxes, and streetlamp posts.

The list is endless, and pretty much covers anything which at some point in time has occupied a street corner, plastered on a wall, stood on a pavement or the middle of a road or just outside a shop.**

A Lucy Box, 2021

Once they did the business but progress has reduced them to rusting, neglected and forgotten bits of our history.

Like those Lucy Boxes which according to my I Spy Lucy Boxes, site, a "Lucy box" is a name applied to boxes, about 3 feet high, about 2 feet wide and about 18 inches deep, which are to be found on pavements throughout the city.   

Such boxes were originally used in connection with the tram network and then with the trolley bus network; and as part of the general electricity supply network; and for telephone purposes”.***

To these I could add horse troughs and finger posts.  

For those who like me who were born in the first half of the last century, the horse trough were a common sight still fulfilling their purpose of offering drinking water to thirsty horses which pulled the milk floats and assorted carts and wagons. While finger posts with their destination indicators pointing in different directions remain far more attractive than those giant metal signs in day glow colours. 

And looking at this vending machine from the middle decades of the 20th century it is hard to remember that there was a time when you could get cigarettes, chocolate, chewing gum and even milk and orange juice from a machine which required to to do no more than put your money in a slot and pull the right lever.

No complicated battery of buttons to assist in making a choice between a bewildering selection and which requires a card rather than a few coins.

But then as now there was always that danger that the machine refused to give you anything ..... reminding me of that old sad lament ...."here I stand, paid a penny and only ......".

All of which is a long way from Porto in Portugal and so given that we have shifted in time and space, I shall close with this wonderful sign from the age of the old Manchester trams.

It is undated but I think will come from the 1930s or 40s.

Tram sign, undated

And I wonder if it will have a longer life than the sign to the lavatories in a department store in Manchester I collected yesterday.

2025

Well we shall see.

Location; on any street, shop wall at anytime in the last two centuries.

Pictures; wall dated stamped sardines, and a bit of street furniture brought to you by Fucoli-Somepal, 2025, A Hardy & Padmore of Worcester Lucy Box, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertso the forgotten machine in Deal, 2016, courtesy of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick, Manchester Corporation Tramways, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown

* Fucoli-Somepal, https://www.fucoli-somepal.pt/EN/produtos/produtos/agua-residuais-saneamento#

**Street furniture, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Street%20furniture 

*** I Spy Lucy Boxes , http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/lucy/lucyboxes.htm

At the end of the day …………

The caption just said “Happy Easter”.

It was posted on Easter Sunday by our Julia from Coruche in Portugal where she and Saul are on holiday.

It captures perfectly the end of a day, watching as the sun goes down with nothing to worry about other than if the wine is chilled.

I went looking for information on Coruche and turned up very little. My Wikipedia says "Coruche is a municipality in Santarém District in Portugal. The population in 2011 was 19,944, in an area of 1115.72 km².

The present Mayor is Francisco Silvestre de Oliveira, elected by the Socialist Party."

Added to which Trip Adviser, offers up several interesting places to visit including, Museu Municipal de Coruche, Posto de Turismo de Coruche e Loja do Montado, and the local church of, Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Castelo.

After which a relax in the fading sun seems the perfect way to end the day.

Location; Coruche, Portugal

Picture; Happy Easter, 2023, from the collection of Julia Czajkowska

* Coruche, Portugal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coruche

**Coruche, Trip Advisor, https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Tourism-g3191375-Coruche_Santarem_District_Central_Portugal-Vacations.html

Other people’s pictures …………. Lisbon …… no. 3 ….. roof tops

Now I remain fascinated by other people’s pictures.

It is partly because the pictures are often of places, I have never been, but also because it is an insight into how other people see the world.

So, here just a few years after they were taken are two from our Saul, featuring the bits we all see, but do not always decide to record.

It was a December day, the sun was shinning and unlike Manchester, it was warm.

Location; Lisbon









Pictures; Lisbon, 2019, from the collection of Saul Simpson

Other people’s pictures …………. Lisbon …… no. 2 ….. the monument

Now I remain fascinated by other people’s pictures.

It is partly because the pictures are often of places I have never been, but also because it is an insight into how other people see the world.

So, here just a few years after they were taken are two from our Saul, featuring the bits the history books are hot on.

Later in the week there will be more more, but for now here are two of that other side of any big city.

Today we might rightly question the story behind the figures with the assumption that Europeans could go anywhere and exploit other people's across the globe.

Location; Lisbon

Pictures; Lisbon, 2019, from the collection of Saul Simpson

Other people’s pictures …………. Lisbon …… part 1 ….. just before New Year

Now I remain fascinated by other people’s pictures.

It is partly because the pictures are often of places, I have never been, but also because it is an insight into how other people see the world.

So, here just a few years after they were taken are two from our Saul, featuring the bits of Lisbon which are off the tourist beat.

Later in the week there will be more more, from the more traditional haunts, but for now here are two of that other side of any big city.

Location; Lisbon








Pictures; Lisbon, 2019, from the collection of Saul Simpson

Boring pictures after the lockdown …. no. 3 .... two from Portugal

Now that lockdown has been relaxed, the 2 meters distance might shrink and you can again visit Primax and Top Shop, the new series is launched.

Boring pictures after the lockdown, invites everyone who is out and about to offer up their own photograph.*

The only qualifications are that it should be by you, and be boring.

And quick out of the tracks came Mário, who sent two, adding "Andrew, two pictures to choose: one, from my balcony in Canidelo, Gaia, Portugal, 21st of  June: a lonely elder on cane in his balcony looking down at a post-lockdown closed cafeteria; the other, in the City Park of Porto, 20th: no-access tape round a patch of green under Wisteria".

And unable to decide which to post I decided on both.

Which just leaves everyone else to take part.


Contributions can be sent to me on facebook or twitter, or as a reply to this blog story on any of the social media sites you come across it.

Location; Porto


Pictures; in the City Park of Porto, 20th: no-access tape round a patch of green under Wisteria and the balcony in Canidelo, Gaia, 2020, from the collection of Mário Ricca

*Boring pictures after the lockdown, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Boring%20pictures%20after%20the%20lockdown

Pictures from a backroom, on a moment of self-isolation .....quiet schools ... Oporto ... Portgual

The international side of the series, rolls on with these two fine pictures from Mário Ricca, who commented,

"This is from my balcony door, in Porto, Portugal. 

The building is a closed school, usually busy and noisy.  Its roof is now covered with swallows".

Leaving me just to thank Mario, and add that Mario is a retired teacher, just like me.

Location; Porto

Pictures; my balcony door, in Porto, 2020, from the collection of Mario Ricca

Tram car 541 ………… travels with Kathy and Lawrence across Lisbon

This is tram car 541 on Route 24, which takes you across Lisbon from Largo do Camões in Chiado to Campolide.

And it is one those old trams which have been pressed back into service after a slow decline in the city’s’ tram network.

The decline happened in the 1960s, when the trams were overshadowed by the bright new metro system and an expansion in the bus network.

But with an eye perhaps on the tourist trade, and the fact that the fleet of yellow trams looks fun they are back.

The service started back in 1873 with horse drawn cars, which were replaced from 1901 with electric powered ones, and by 1959 when the network was at its height, there were 27 tram lines.

Today there are six routes, one of which has its own blog story. *

And apparently given the geography of parts of the city, these small trams remain the most effective way of crossing Lisbon.

Route 28 Tram 28 winds its way through the old Moorish quarter which is a labyrinth of narrow streets which climb towards where the old castle was situated. *

And there is even a tourist tram, which as you would expect is one of the yellow ones painted red, offering a guide and a higher fare, following route 28.

All of which means you can do the tourist thing or like Kathy and Lawrence, take the independent approach and travel the network armed with just a map and guide to Lisbon and an indomitable confidence that all will turn out well.

Location; Lisbon

Pictures; Lisbon, 2019, from the collection of Kathy Lee

*Portugal: Touring Lisbon on Tram 28 https://www.routesandtrips.com/touring-lisbon-on-tram-28/