Something rather familiar popped up online this week.
Earlier this summer, we joined Picture Perfect, a campaign encouraging visitors to North Yorkshire to rediscover the old-fashioned pleasure of sending a postcard. It was an idea that appealed to us immediately.
We both remember choosing postcards on childhood holidays, writing far too much in very small writing, finding a stamp and then looking for a postbox. And, of course, receiving them too. There was always something special about a postcard dropping through the letterbox from somewhere else.
So when we were invited to create our own Picture Perfect postcard for guests staying at the Long Barn, we didn’t need much persuading.
Choosing our picture
We knew which view we wanted to use. It’s on one of our favourite walks from Appleton-le-Moors to Sinnington, a route we’ve walked hundreds of times over the years.
On the brow of the hill stood a little wooden shed, next to a tree. Neither was particularly remarkable, but together they’d become part of a view we knew very well.
We’d recently written about the route in our Journal, The Walk That Feels Like Home, so we decided to link the two. We put a QR code on the postcard which takes you to the story of the walk. Guests can read about why it means so much to us and, if they fancy doing it themselves, follow the route.
The postcards were printed, we bought the stamps and put them in the Long Barn ready for guests to write and send. Our little shed was officially on a postcard.
Then our postcard started travelling
This week, the wider Picture Perfect campaign has been picked up by the press, including the Yorkshire Post. Then we spotted our own postcard in Mag North.
They’d not only featured the photograph, they’d picked up on the QR code and the idea of combining something as traditional as a postcard with the online story of the walk. We were rather pleased to see our little shed getting its moment in the spotlight.
There was, however, one slight problem.
The view has changed
We walked past the field again this week.
The shed had gone.
And so had the tree.
We knew the shed wasn’t exactly a permanent structure, but we hadn’t expected our newly printed postcard to become out of date quite so quickly. And yet, perhaps that makes us like it even more.
Without intending to, we’ve made a tiny record of this particular view as it looked at one moment in time.
Our Village History Group has a wonderful collection of old postcards and photographs of Appleton-le-Moors. Looking through them, it’s often the ordinary details that catch our attention. Buildings disappear, roads change and trees grow. Things that nobody thought particularly remarkable at the time become fascinating years later.
Our postcard seems to have managed the same trick rather more quickly than we expected.
The walk is still The Walk That Feels Like Home. The view is still lovely. It’s just different.
And perhaps that’s another reason not to give up on postcards. They don’t just say Wish you were here. Sometimes, without anyone realising it at the time, they also say:
This is how it looked when I was here.
We are already planning more postcards featuring some of our favourite local views. After what happened to our first one, we may be choosing the next view rather carefully.
Preferably something with a reasonable chance of still being there by the time the postcards come back from the printers.
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