Lush English summer trees arch over a quiet, prosperous Edwardian residential street in Eccles, Lancashire, the red-brick gabled villas half-hidden behind mature hedges and iron railings while a lone figure walks in the middle distance — a scene of almost perfect suburban calm that contrasts strikingly with the date penciled on the back, January 8, 1945, placing this card in the hands of someone named Mary during the final bitter winter of the Second World War, when Eccles, a borough of Salford on Manchester's western edge, was still living under blackout and rationing even as Allied victory drew near, making this quiet street scene perhaps a small act of nostalgia or reassurance passed between friends.