Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2015 | Page 18

RYDE

Glimpse into

Donald's
saucy postcard show

T

ucked away in the basement of
the Royal Victoria Arcade in Union
Street, Ryde is a treasure trove of
work by renowned English artist Donald
McGill, whose name became synonymous
with a whole genre of saucy seaside
postcards from yesteryear.
McGill was born in 1875, died in 1962,
and throughout his life produced an
amazing array of postcards, that were
displayed on stands outside shops in
seaside towns up and down the country.
Significantly it was a display in Ryde
that brought his collection to even more
prominence when they were seized and
temporarily banned in the 1950s for
being a bit too risque.
Most people must have seen the type of
postcards that McGill produced - the ones
that parents smiled at without letting their
kids see them, and in turn the ones that
kids sniggered at, away from the gaze of
their parents. They depicted everyone from
attractive young women to fat old ladies,
and drunken middle aged men to vicars,
with an appropriate caption underneath

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always having a double meaning.
The museum is situated in what used
to be the old Flea Market, downstairs
at the back of the Arcade, and its walls,
and even ceiling, are covered by such
postcards, many of which are original
stock from the 1950s and 1960s and still
available to buy today.

"Donald McGill was a
very innocuous looking
chap who looked a
bit like a bank clerk.
He started drawing
cartoons almost by
accident; he did one for
a friend who was ill, and
it grew from there."

But the originals are not so easy to
come by. The vast majority have been
sold individually at auction, often fetching
several thousands of pounds. Ryde
businessman James Bissell-Thomas
compiled the interesting and amusing
collection, and is the copyright holder of
Donald McGill postcards.
Historic Ryde Society volunteers man
the Museum, and chairman Brian Harris
explained: “The postcard museum is
part of the Ryde District Heritage Centre,
which we also run. Donald McGill was a
very innocuous looking chap who looked
a bit like a bank clerk. He started drawing
cartoons almost by accident; he did one for
a friend who was ill, and it grew from there.
“He worked for 58 years, by which
time he had published 12,000 different
illustrations, mostly postcards. But his
early ones weren’t at all saucy. Initially they
were social history, looking at animals and
people including suffragettes, as well as
illustrations associated with First World War
propaganda against Kaiser Bill, and Second
World war propaganda against Adolf Hitler.