Three Times Hotter Than Bournemouth

In the late ’20s my grandparents, Lydia and Eric Fletcher, set sail for Kobe in Japan, where Eric’s employer, Dunlop, had opened a factory. Every week or so his brother George would send the papers out to Eric for him to check the sports results. In return, they would send postcards back to George, and his wife Ivy, in their home town of Birmingham, England.

Eric was a keen and adept sportsman. These were the days when a stocky five-foot-six man could lick all comers at tennis, and then take home their wages at cribbage. They were fans of West Bromwich Albion and Warwickshire County Cricket Club, and spoke of little else in these brief exchanges. Only the extreme heat got a word in edgeways.

There were letters too with no doubt more detailed accounts of life in Japan (my Auntie Marjorie was born in Japan during this time, as a reference to “the baby” indicates), but these postcards offer brief snapshots of the time with their jolly thankyous and asides on the latest score. The language is informal and fun. Ivy, a thin woman, is cheerfully addressed as “Fatty” in one card, and in another as a “slacker”. A posh time was had by all, and they remained in the pink.

The final postcard in the collection is dated 27 April 1931, but these cards – beautiful Japanese images on one side, jolly Brummie asides on the other – capture perfectly the odd and exquisite cultural juxtaposition that Eric and Lydia had embarked upon.

They returned from Japan in the early 1930’s and took up where they left off in Birmingham. They were both killed in a car accident in 1968, only months before I was born, so aside from a few rather grainy photos, these cards are all I have of them.

1928

Having a posh time