Postcard tradition is under threat

10:53am Monday 7th April 2008

YET another great tradition is under threat, I see.

Coast magazine has launched a campaign to save the great British postcard in an age where research shows the number being sent has dropped by 75 per cent in the past decade alone.

No wonder, really, when you think that people these days are more likely to text or call from their mobile phone to keep in touch with the folks back home.

At one time a holiday at the seaside, home and abroad, always involved the purchase of various cards - naughty or scenic, depending on the recipient - and the stamps necessary to send them on their way.

"Wish you were here", was often the message, even if it was not always true.

People who worked in offices always seemed more likely to send one to colleagues back home if they were visiting somewhere exotic with sun-kissed views and "a lovely little bistro just round the corner".

I tried to subvert that kind of thing by choosing the most boring card I could find - usually a black and white shot of ancient stones in a field under leaden skies - and adding details on the back about the number of dead badgers and rabbits I had seen on nearby country roads.

Such irony had a low penetration rate, I discovered, and eventually I gave up.

We still get some postcards when relatives are away and we usually send a few when we are on holiday - but not as many as we did in the past.

I can well believe that the postcard is endangered in modern technological times.

Postcards on the edge, as it were.

Does it matter? Probably not, but this campaign will provide food for thought when I next find myself - with nothing else to do - glancing idly at the cards on display outside the shop in the hope of finding something tolerably amusing.

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