Naughty but nice

As part of our Save the Postcard Campaign, we look at the ups and downs (ooh-er) of saucy seaside postcards. By Clare Gogerty

Bawdy, bright and in bad taste, saucy seaside postcards have a rumbustious appeal. Hen-pecked husbands and buxom, overbearing wives have spun on revolving stands for decades, reaching the height of their popularity in the 1950s. But in 1954, postcard artist Donald McGill was prosecuted following the Conservative government's clampdown on all things deemed tasteless.

 

The risqué postcard industry never recovered from this blow, despite the best efforts by Bamforth in the 1970s and 1980s. Popular taste also cooled towards the saucy postcard, but recently there have been the stirrings of a revival, with Bamforth licensing its back catalogue for reproduction on mugs, T-shirts and even Agent Provocateur lingerie. But we can't leave this to chance - send a saucy postcard today!

Click here for our gallery of super, saucy postcards...
 

 

These comic characters are part of the same tradition of British comedy that has brought us Carry On films, Benny Hill and Ronnie Barker The king of sauce

The artist most commonly associated with saucy postcards is Donald McGill (1875-1962), whose blushing girls, lascivious lads and large ladies wedged into deckchairs epitomise the knockabout fun associated with the seaside. He divided his work into three categories: mild, medium and strong. Unsurprisingly, ‘strong' was the most popular. From 1904, he produced around 12,000 designs, selling around 200 million cards until prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act stopped him. Once derided as coarse and vulgar (except by George Orwell, who praised it in his 1942 essay The Art of Donald McGill), his work is now very collectable. At the time, McGill was paid three guineas for each of his designs; recently much of the original artwork, owned by Michael Winner, was sold for nearly £250,000.

 

The smutty brigade

You can still find postcards by Scarborough company Bamforth for sale in some coastal resorts. They're the ones with scantily clad women and weedy men engaged in double entendre-heavy banter. In its heyday (1963), Bamforth sold 16 million cards, but sales had dwindled to two million by 1994. The company's parent, Scarborough printing firm ETW Dennis, collapsed in 2000, but the name was bought by businessman Ian Wallace, who now also owns the copyright. He is concentrating on licensing the artwork, and saucy madams and lecherous lotharios now crop up on mouse mats and tea towels, as well as postcards.

 

Campaign update

It has been non-stop at the Save the Postcard Campaign office since we launched in April. People really do care about the fate of our favourite method of communication. The story was reported on Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Breakfast, Five News, on 20 local radio stations, in the Daily Telegraph, Daily Star and many local papers. Response from Coast readers has also been terrific, with many of you sharing your cards and stories. Special thanks to Sally Parkin, who has copied and sent many seaside cards from her collection, and Paul G Ablett, who took the time to paint cards of West Runton and Sheringham in Norfolk.

Click here to find out more about Coast's save the seaside postcard campaign...