Saucy postcards relaunched for a modern audience

Our guest travel writer, Lewis K Cooper, writes about the return of a British seaside institution
Postcards. Photograph: Sarah Lee

The saucy seaside postcards that used to be as much part of a British holiday as sticks of rock and ice-cream, are being relaunched by a company in Yorkshire.

The world famous designs, some of which were banned for breaching obsenity laws, were created by Bamforth and Company in Yorkshire. They are to be reproduced under a new licence and will soon appear on greetings cards, sweets, fridge magnets, and perhaps appropriately, underwear.

Dating back to 1870, the postcards became popular after James Bamforth, a portrait photographer, opened his eponymous business in Holmfirth. Initially, he specialised in lantern slides. But in 1910, when they began producing risque postcards, the firm became successful.

So popular were the postcards, soon after the First World War, 20m were sold every year. By 1960, Bamforth was the world's largest producer of comic postcards.

Leeds-based businessman, Ian Wallace, has kept the company in Yorkshire after purchasing it from Scarborough printing firm Dennis a decade ago. He is behind the drive to reacquaint the younger generation with the postcards, that had long fallen out of fashion.

He said: "The 40,000 images are known the world over and vie with the old Carry On films in popularity. The future is very brights for a company that looked doomed a few years ago."

The designs are from an era before political correctness was heard of. There's a cartoon woman trying to put up a windbreak on the beach. She says: "It's too soft Fred, it won't stay in, shall I hit it with the mallet?"

Wallace says they are just a bit of fun and reckons that "99% of people who read them and look at them enjoy them."

The appeal of postcards has long since diminshed with email, smartphones and social networking sites, replacing the need to send a printed missive from holidays.

This time, the cartoon characters from the postcards will appear on beer glasses, coasters, t-shirts, pyjamas and signs.