Introduction

I found the inspiration for a new creative project hiding in plain sight in a collection of old postcards. The pictures didn’t particularly interest me, I was drawn to the writing on the backs of these old postcards which can be incredibly everyday or exciting, interesting and revealing.

On the backs of these cards there are many, many everyday messages; thank you notes for parcels, cake and Turnips! There are also intriguing messages written in code, shorthand, or another language to keep the message a secret, chess moves as though the writer and recipient were conducting a game of chess by post, the use of family nicknames “Darling goldfish… with love from Granny”.

Or, the messages reveal the story of the writer and their family. I recently came across 11 postcards connected to one family. By delving into Ancestry and the National Archives I’ve discovered and started to research the stories of 2 sisters who were both Nurses during WW1. Six of these cards are shown below, these were written between October 1917 and November 1918.

There are two distinct projects, the stories of the Ellwood sisters and other WW1 nurses; and the smaller stories: the chess players, hidden messages and the thank you notes. I’m going to start with the small stories, as the stories of the nurses need more research.

Cards sent by a member of the Ellwood Family