Antique & Vintage Postcards

Sun-drenched holidaymakers stroll, sit, and linger along the Jubilee Promenade at Cleveleys — a trim Lancashire seaside resort tucked between Blackpool and Fleetwood — while striped cooling towers loom surreally on the horizon and a tramway shelter anchors the right edge of the frame, evoking the particular pleasure-by-the-sea atmosphere that drew working-class families from across the industrial north of England in the postwar years. Numbered 67104 and published in the Progress Series by E.C.&S. Ltd., this real-photo-style card shows the promenade during what appears to be a busy summer afternoon, its sea wall stepped and populated, the beach beyond dotted with sunbathers. On the back, postmarked Blackpool, Lancs., 28 July 1949, a writer named John or Joan — signing "lots of love, John's Mary" — writes cheerfully to a couple in Salford that they are "having a nice time here," that "Olwin forwarded your letter on," and that they hope to call on Saturday to find out if Tom has heard anything — a small, warm social world captured mid-sentence.