Hastings

 A view around 1950, with the East Hill Lift to the left and miniature railway in the foreground. There also appears to be a couple of WW11 pill boxes on the cliffs. A scan from a negative in my collection.

1950s Eastbourne

A passenger on a open-top bus snaps Eastbourne sea-front around 1951. A touring coach has parked up and edges into the shot, a Leyland TD2/Harrington all the way from Manchester. A scan from a negative in my collection.

Wish you were here?

My general rule of thumb as to whether something is old enough to qualify for inclusion into Vintage Stuff is that it must be at least 25 years old. As I have estimated that the postcard above originated around 1990, it just slips in under the wire to be the most modern item on here so far.

Published by Coastal Colour Ltd., about whom I can find little, it illustrates the delights to be savoured at the Essex seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea. Presumably she will be there to greet you personally as you step from the train. I seem to remember similar cards being sold at the likes of Brighton and Southend, perhaps even using the same model, alongside the more traditional 'saucy postcards'.

Bought recently at Oxfam for the princely sum of 49p.

Welcome to Bournemouth

These two illustrations provided the frontispiece to official guides to Bournemouth published in 1935 and 1965. The top view was entitled Bathing from the Pier, and appears to be a of a smaller area especially built lower down for that activity. One-piece swimsuits are certainly the fashion!

The lower view is, well, self explanatory. I'm not sure whether as a nine year-old, I would have been interested in the girls on the beach, although I certainly appreciated singer Susan Maughan when she appeared with Morcambe & Wise at the Winter Gardens Theatre the following summer! My 1965 holiday would have included riding on the yellow Corporation trolleybuses and serious train-watching, as most services through Bournemouth then were still steam-hauled. An evening treat would be a drive through the town's illuminations in Uncle Billy's Ford Consul. Now, where's my time machine.........

The sobering thought is that the carefree group from 1935 have probably all died and that the game gals from 1965 are all now pensioners!