Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2015 | Page 19

INTERVIEW
He was basically an ordinary guy, painting
life as he saw it.”
When some of his first ‘double entendre’
postcards started hitting the esplanades
in the 1930s, no one really worried about
them, because there was no censorship in
those days. So in the 1950s he suddenly
decided to re-publish some of the ones
that had been around for many years.
That prompted the Ryde upheaval
in 1953, when the Council’s ‘watch
committee’ raided five shops in the town
and seized around 5,000 postcards, which
they deemed to be offensive.
Brian continued: “That snowballed
with watch committees in seaside towns
all around the country doing their own
‘obscenity watch’. There was a show trial
in 1954 which resulted in McGill being
sent to prison for about eight days. He
defended his postcards by saying they
were purely innocent pictures. I am sure
many people who viewed them thought
they were not quite innocent, but didn’t
really know why, and didn’t understand
the double meaning.
“Ryde is obviously the ideal place to have
this museum, because it was the first
town where the cards were seized. McGill
is internationally famous, and there is
still a tremendous amount of interest in
his work. There were several other artists
similar to McGill, but many of their works
were more vulgar, and less acceptable.”
The illustrated Biography of Donald McGill,
written by Bernard Crossley, is available to buy
at the Postcard Museum. Also available is the
collection of the 21 cards that were originally
seized, along with three others that were saucy,
but escaped the ban.

Brian Harris with Historic Ryde Society
members and Museum volunteers Alan
Brading (shirtsleeved) and John King

www.visitilife.com

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