Postcards
‘You need a hobby; everyone needs a hobby, especially when there’s no one sitting opposite you at teatime.’ Angus District Postcard and Stamp Collectors Club, describing the importance of having something ‘to keep you busy’.
Angus Remembers was given a collection of postcards by a Brechin resident, whose relative had saved them over many years. The collection affords us glimpses of the joy felt in exploring places in Scotland and sharing that joy with family and friends through postcards. Each one has a postage stamp and a unique post office mark that records where the card had been posted and when. The sending of personal letters and cards has largely been replaced by digital methods of communication. Sandra Ireland devised a special writing session with our Angus Remembers focus group, deciding to pay homage to the humble postcard by using it to capture and share our most precious advice.
These ‘letters to your pre-pandemic self’ might prove a useful resource for generations in the future. They are written on cards made by Lily, the artist on this project. They use silk, hand-dyed with Aronia berries from Menmuir, and feature an embroidered flying goose. The image reflects the time when the postcards were being sent when the geese began to arrive in Angus. Their cyclical migration is also an image which can help us think about the pandemic and how time has passed since the first lockdown. What has changed? And what has stayed the same?
Would you like to write your own postcard like ours? We have some helpful prompts from writer Sandra Ireland. Perhaps you’d like to collect postcards? Only cards that have been sent will have post office marks and stamps on them. You could buy a mystery second-hand job- lot, or make and send your own postcards.
