Ramblings of a Deltiologist

Occasionally, I find postcards written by the same people to the same address scattered among lots of other postcards. Today I found a bunch written by two gentlemen, Gerald and Alan, to M and P during their trip around Italy in July/August 1951. Assuming M and P is Mama and Papa, I investigated Gerald and Alan and 11 Waverley Grove, Finchley and I discovered this blurb in an auction guide: In his flat overlooking the Thames on Richmond Hill Alan Mann created a treasure trove. It was an eclectic collection, each object the result of an emotional encounter. Born in Finchley, London, in July 1924, he joined his father's firm of quantity surveyors after he left school, and later lived with his brother, Gerald in a flat above the business on Bloomsbury Square. Alan paid frequent visits to the British Museum on his doorstep, where his love of exotic art developed. The art of Africa seems to have ignited a particular passion, with a focus on that of the Fang of Gabon. Five works passed t...

It has been a while since I last posted something. I have been somewhat preoccupied by some research and archive work. Both have centred around the fascinating international all-women expedition of 1959 to Cho Oyu, the fifth highest mountain in the world. Here is a little bit of history... In about 1958, Claude Kogan, a French swimwear designer and accomplished mountaineer, visited the Alpine Club in London to give a talk on Cho Oyu. Here she also presented her next venture: an international all-women expedition to put a woman on the top of Cho Oyu. Not only was Kogan obsessed to be the first woman on Cho Oyu, but she was also a feminist who strongly believed women were more suitable to high-altitude climbing than men. Three climbers from both the Ladies Alpine Club and the Pinnacle Club, Eileen Healey, Margaret Darvall and Countess Dorothea Gravina, were the British contingent, bringing in sponsorship from the UK newspaper The Daily Express. Sadly, it was to end in tragedy when Claude...