s well as being a great source of old photographs, postcards can also provide an useful insight into the opinions of visitors to our city. A few candid words will quickly betray their thoughts, giving us the objective view of a neutral observer. It is also interesting to study the handwriting, the sentiments and the humour used by folk in decades gone by.

1939: Postcard to Evacuees

opping back a few years to when the war had only been going on for a few weeks, this card displays a pleasant, and for the time, essential, sense of humour.

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Postcard text: Lest you forget! How are our five poor Coventry Evacuees faring? My co-digger and I are thinking of paying a visit to the New Inn - it may be one night this week....

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I can only assume that "My co-digger and I" refers to the fact that the sender is busy installing an air-raid shelter in preparation for the coming onslaught. At that early stage of the war - known as the "Phoney War", due to the fact that from a British citizens' point of view there was little apparent action - none of the people digging their shelters in could have possibly realised what hardships they would soon be enduring.

I wonder if the five "poor Coventry Evacuees" stayed at their safe-homes for long? Relatively few people took up the evacuation option, and in the early part of the war, many returned after quite a short while, for the same reason as given above.

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