Sun, sea and saucy fun

TIME was when the saucy postcard was as much a part of the British seaside holiday as the bucket and spade, sand, sun and all the rest of it.
And there was no greater exponent of the art of the postcard double entendre than one Donald McGill, who rattled out no less than 13,000 of them in an extraordinarily prolific career.
It started soon after the death of Queen Victoria and continued into the 1960s.
And his work brought a short, third, 's’ word to the seaside holiday motto. His variations on a theme were ingenious, tortuous, twisted and often downright rude. Quite an achievement when brevity was key.
Now a new attraction dedicated to the life and artworks of McGill has been established in Ryde’s Union Street, a town where bucket and spade holidays centering on Ryde Sands has undergone something of a 21st century renaissance.
The Saucy Seaside Postcard Museum has been put together by globemaker, collector and enthusiast for things interesting and artistic James Bissell-Thomas.
He has created a shrine to a great man of letters with an empire built of cards. But why in Ryde?
The answer has its roots in the prudish 1950s. After his death, McGill’s work was milked and downgraded by copying and fell victim to changing tastes.
Now it is beginning to be properly recognised, not just for its obvious and, nearly always, suggestive humour, but for the way it charted social history.
James, who established the Orrery Cafe in Union Street, was looking for something to give the business a new seaside twist when he came not only across McGill and the opportunity to buy the copyright but a fascinating link between McGill and Ryde, a town associated — appropriately enough — with the invention of the limerick.
After years of knocking out several postcards a day with classic lines like that one from the fat bloke: "It’s been years since I’ve seen my little Willy..." and the assistant telling a customer: "Gentle-man’s Requisites? Yes, Sir, go right through Ladies’ Underwear!", McGill enter-ed the 1950s still churning it out.
But, if he thought he was going to get to the end of his career without having his collar felt he had reckoned without Ryde prudishness. Yes, there was such a thing...
A vicar wrote a letter to the County Press complaining about some of the postcards on sale in the town and the boys in blue swooped, seizing nearly 2,000 postcards and prosecuting McGill under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act.
McGill was 79 years old by the time a prosecution took place in Lincoln in 1954. That prosecution was to result in a whole series of cards being withdrawn and the loss of tens of thousands of pounds of revenue as a result.
An example of the "obscenity" of McGill’s cards was a red-faced beach-goer humping a giant stick of rock, resting somewhere between knee and middle.
The caption? "A Stick of Rock, Cock?
Hardly the Oz trial.
"The general opinion in Ryde was that the prosecution was ridiculous. That was not the view of the local vicar or that of the police but the very fact it happened was enough to fire our enthusiasm for McGill and for his work, which definitely bears closer inspection," said James.
It was enough to convince him to display McGill’s work in the Orrery.
"McGill’s work was enjoyed by millions during his lifetime, charting changing society through the Suffragette movement, transport and two world wars. His career spanned nearly six decades of keen observation," said James.
"He remained a modest man and, in my opinion, never really received the recognition he deserved. He himself observed during a TV interview that he had wanted to do 'something better’."
The McGill artefacts on display reflect that and include some of the rare surviving examples of his serious art.
Those wanting to chart McGill’s work can do so through the postcards on display. James has chronologically applied 2,600 to the vaulted ceiling of the museum.
As part of the timeline, a German bomb protrudes through the roof. The sort of comic interlude that McGill would have welcomed.
The museum has postcards galore on display and visitors can be photographed in a giant one. There is the obligatory deceiver inside, a phoney "reflective" globe bearing the image of McGill and outside in Union Street the "reflection" of astronomer Patrick Moore still stares aloft. This time he is joined by a street dinosaur.
For those who regard McGill as something of a dinosaur himself, James has the answer.
"People should not be offended in these times of political correctness by any of the exhibits.
"Donald McGill was a keen observer of humanity and of the changes he saw throughout his life and we were delighted that one of his grandsons, Patrick Tumber, did us the honour of officially opening the museum.
"We were so pleased to be able to buy the copyright after the company that was still trading on his name 20 years after his death, ceased.
"And we are delighted to be able to show off McGill’s work in a building that resembles a classic Greek temple — indeed it is now a shrine to the politically incorrect."

Reporter: richardw@iwcpmail.co.uk