Postcards

~ Mom's Journal ~

A postcard is a popular means of communication pending a letter. Normally it carries short and sweet messages.

When was the last time you heard someone said “send us a postcard! “  A rare phrase indeed! The phrase indicates someone is going on a holiday…or work. Soon a postcard or a series of postcards will be delivered to us, the recipients. As we read we get to share the experiences and places visited by our senders.

The space to write at the back of the postcard is very limited so it is actually a good way to polish our skills in writing. Of course, the picture or scenery on the postcard will guide us of the things to write and to share with the recipient of our postcards.

Sometimes a son would keep his father informed of his whereabouts by sending a postcard. The son would address his father as “ayahanda” and refer to himself as “anakanda”. As the son undertook a business travel, he would post the postcards from the designated places and would write short notes of the dates of arrivals and departures to the next destination.

Postcards from a son:

A postcard dated 17/10/1975 posted from Hamburg, West Germany. The message read: arrived from Milan, Italy on 16/10/1975 will stay until 19/10/1975.

Incidentally, the West and East Germany were reunited in 1990.

A postcard dated 21/10/1975 posted from Bremen, West Germany. The group arrived in Bremen on 19/10/1975. The postcard was posted prior to their departure to Amsterdam in the evening.

Apparently, the group stopped at Rotterdam on 22/10/1975 and left for Amsterdam in the evening of 24/10/1975.

A postcard posted from Amsterdam, a city of canals and bridges. Amsterdam was 700 years old in 1975. The group departed for Antwerp on 26/10/1975.

On 2/11/1975 a postcard posted from Paris, France. It said: Dear father, I am in Paris 29/10/1975 until 3/11/1975.

And they came home…at intervals the son would travel back home to Kuala Lipis, Pahang to visit his elderly father.

Sometimes a sister would get a postcard from her brother. The brother was still studying and the sister was employed in a FELDA scheme. Sometimes she got transferred to another office in a different FELDA scheme and in different parts of the country hence the need to confirm her address by her dear brother.

My brother sent me a postcard while he was studying in the UK. There must have been others which I must have misplaced. It was quite a long time ago in the 1970s. As siblings, we wrote letters and sent photographs and bought souvenirs for special occasions.

My brother (left) with his friends.

Another brother shared his holiday of “touring Europe” while waiting for his exam result.

A postcard dated 16/7/1980 posted from Hamburg, West Germany. My brother wrote quite a long message about his preparation and his plan of touring Europe and he managed to squeeze all the information in that small space. At that time he and his friends already covered 5 countries in 10 days! Awesome!

A postcard of Luxembourg dated 18/7/1980. The landscape seems to be filled with old buildings from the medieval period.

21/7/1980 my brother arrived in Austria unintentionally as a result of jumping onto the wrong train at Munich.

30/7/1980 he was back at home in Birkenhead. He was doing his A-Levels then. He described Birkenhead as a small town that nobody knows but it is adjacent to Liverpool that everybody knows. Traveling for 22 days in Europe at 11 countries… to be young and adventurous.

Postcards are mementos of your travel.

Each postcard is special because it is a package of memories of sharing notes and experiences of the time and place of travel.