Morecambeology - Seaside sauce celebrated with Peter Wade

‘Kiss me quick, Squeeze me slow!’ was the familiar message of many a seaside hat.
Banned postcard by Donald McGill.Banned postcard by Donald McGill.
Banned postcard by Donald McGill.

Saucy seaside postcards reflected such holiday romances with their stock characters of another age – curvaceous young women, well-built older ladies, red-nosed men, self-conscious honeymooning couples and prurient vicars.

Many of these cards were designed by the English graphic artist Donald McGill, generally acknowledged as the King of the Saucy Postcard, and could have been found in souvenir shops up and down Morecambe’s seafront as well as those of many other seaside towns.

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McGill (sometimes confused with Eric Gill whose work is so well represented in the Midland Hotel) began drawing postcards during the Great War when he took on such awkward topics as hoarders and profiteers, spies and aliens or shirkers and slackers.

Don't waste a second, come just as you are to Preston. 
Comic novelty postcard. Published by Joseph Asher & Co., 3 & 4 Ivy Lane, London E.C.
Artwork by Donald McGill. Posted in 1913Don't waste a second, come just as you are to Preston. 
Comic novelty postcard. Published by Joseph Asher & Co., 3 & 4 Ivy Lane, London E.C.
Artwork by Donald McGill. Posted in 1913
Don't waste a second, come just as you are to Preston. Comic novelty postcard. Published by Joseph Asher & Co., 3 & 4 Ivy Lane, London E.C. Artwork by Donald McGill. Posted in 1913

While McGill’s postcards proved popular (over his lifetime millions of copies of some 12,000 designs were sold) he never made more than three guineas (£3.15) per design.

Today, however, original McGill artwork can attract prices among collectors in the thousands of pounds.

Donald McGill’s postcards lay at the edge of what was termed public decency.

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In 1954 he was ordered to appear in court, charged under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act. He was found guilty and fined £50 plus £25 costs. More painfully, his postcards were ordered to be destroyed while orders were cancelled from nervous shopkeepers.

"Donald McGill in SPAAACE!" by davidkernohan. From Creative Commons."Donald McGill in SPAAACE!" by davidkernohan. From Creative Commons.
"Donald McGill in SPAAACE!" by davidkernohan. From Creative Commons.

Despite such setbacks, McGill was regarded as socially significant.

The writer George Orwell produced an essay, The Art of Donald McGill, in 1941.

McGill also appeared before the Commons Select Committee which was collecting evidence to reform the Obscene Publications Act.

By modern standards, McGill’s postcards seem quite tame.

Donald McGill.Donald McGill.
Donald McGill.
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In 2010 a Donald McGill Postcard Museum was opened in Ryde on the Isle of Wight (Ryde had been the site of a police raid in 1953 when more than 5,000 postcards, most by McGill, were seized from five shops).

McGill’s most popular card sold some 6,000,000 copies.

A bookish man and his lady friend are resting under a tree. ‘Do you like Kipling?’ the man asks. ‘I don’t know, you naughty boy’, is the reply, ‘I’ve never kippled!’ That joke has been widely used since by others, even on The Muppet Show – the height of modern respectability.

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