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‘PSH’. Twenty-nine manuscript postcards.

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Hand-drawn postcards providing a rare, personal, and comic snapshot into English humour and the lives of London lovers in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Many of the postcards feature ‘Punch’-style cartoons on a variety of themes, some mock landlords and pawnbrokers, others bank tellers, some marriages. Ten are titled ‘Play Titles Travestied’ and feature the names of contemporary plays and musicals with a comical reimagining of the title’s meaning. These may have been inspired by Alfred Teele’s similarly titled contemporary series in the journal ‘Pick Me Up’, though the theme does not seem to be unique to Teele. One postcard includes a portrait of Prime Minister Henry Herbert Asquith. ‘PSH’ is particularly fond of word-play, like this short exchange between judge and prisoner, titled ‘Handy’:

The Judge: “What is your trade?”
Prisoner: “I’m a locksmith, yer honour.”
Judge: “And what were you doing in the jewellers shop?”
Prisoner: “Well, when the policeman came in I was making a bolt for the door.”

Five of the postcards have been sent, postmarked London EC and Stockwell and dated between March and July 1912, to a Miss M.A. Potter in East Putney. The short messages imply a familiarity between the two, and frequently reference dates or times when PSH will be home and the two can meet – often providing windows of only half an hour. The postcards also include complaints of loneliness, anecdotes about painting landscapes, and a friendly wager on the Boat Race – ‘Pair of gloves to a tie on the boatrace? I don’t think I stand much chance, but I am “game”’ – as well as more mundane messages about working overtime, the prospect of taking a holiday together in August and the dates Miss Potter should try and get off work, and the complexities of fixing Miss Potter’s bicycle.

The final postcard sent is dated 5 July 1912 (though others, unsent, seem to have been drawn after 1912 as they reference plays staged later in the decade); perhaps PSH switched his correspondence to letters, or perhaps their August holiday was less than successful.

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