YOU could be forgiven for thinking that postcards are just an envelope-free greeting card, but to many, they stand for so much more. For a
deltiologist (a postcard collector to you and I) they are a hobby, or even a profession. To participants of projects such as PostSecret, where
anonymous postcards tell a previously untold secret, or Postcrossing, a worldwide postcard exchange project, they can be inspirational and
empowering.
When university separated my best friend and I, our mutual love (read: addiction) to bacon sandwiches was sustained with postcards. Any swine-related
postcard was sent across the country to offer comfort when eating a bacon sandwich alone. With post-graduation emigration putting the North Sea
between us, the tradition continued. Now, after five years of entertaining postal workers with postcards addressed to the likes of ‘HRH Queen Pork’
and ‘Daisey McPorkchop,’ I have the definitive collection of swine mail (probably).
Our theme may be unusual but the form of communication is not. Over the past century billions of postcards have been sent across time zones and war
zones, and today, in an era of instantaneous communication, receiving real mail is a splendored thing.
Thankfully the novelty of sending a holiday ‘gloating’ using 21st century technology has not yet consigned postcards to the sands of time. The
quintessential seaside holiday staple is enjoying a renaissance as the more personal and intimate greeting choice (banal “wish you were here’s” are
optional). There really is nothing better than making someone’s day whilst practising the dying art of handwriting too!
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