Custom Made
When I looked in on Harborough indoor market recently, I didn’t expect to find such an unusual and rather rare piece of local history. Boxes full of old postcards from yesteryear were on display on one of the stalls.
When I decided to sift through them, to my surprise, the first card I came across was a birthday postcard. Sending ‘Many Happy Returns’ to a lady in Northampton. The picture shows some highland cattle situated next to a stream in a Scottish glen, accompanied by an appropriate verse.
You may ask ’What is unusual about that?’. Until one notices the wording that appears diagonally across the centre of this sepia scene. ‘From Slawston’, indicates its origin.
I can only assume the village post office must have commissioned these for visitors to the locality to send to their loved ones. It seems most extraordinary for such a small community such as Slawston to have a customised piece of stationery. Produced for what I can only imagine would have been a rather limited clientele.
The postmark clearly shows Market Harborough and is dated 1922. It has a couple of green 1/2p stamps, affixed to the reverse showing a profile of H.M. King George V (1910-1936).
According to the local Kelly’s directory at the time the card was posted, the sub-postmistress in Slawston was Mrs Elizabeth Kirby.
It’s not every day one finds something as exceptional as this piece of local memorabilia that thankfully has survived and remained in the neighbourhood for over 100 years.
Glyn Hatfield
The Langton Arms Reopens
