Postcard number: 003
Bought in: Granchester, United Kingdom
Sent to: Elina in Finland
Written: 10 February 2010
Sent: 11 February 2010
Text says:
10 February 2010, London UK
Dear Elina,
This postcard comes from The Orchard in Granchester, which is a short walk along the river from Cambridge. Poet Rupert Brooke once lodged there, and it was also a place visited by novelists E.M. Foster and Viginia Woolf and other intellectuals of the day. Today, the Orchard staff still serve tea and scones to the tourists, who sit in deck chairs between the trees. I’ve been to The Orchard twice – once in 2007, and again last year. This postcard comes from the second trip. I was reading Jill Dawson’s “The Great Lover” at the time, a heavily fictionalised account of Brooke’s time as a lodger at The Orchard and his relationship with oe of the servant girls. It’s said to have been inspired by an old photograph similar to this one. Incidentally I grew up on an orchard in New Zealand – and though most of the trees have been pulled out now, they still feature in many of my own stories.
Wishing you all the best,
Tash
[…] from London. Your daughter, Elina, asked me to send you a postcard as part of my project to find new homes for all the spare […]
Hi Tash,
the postcard arrived today 🙂 ! I love the photo taken 100 years ago and the story you wrote. Thank you so much!
Best wishes,
Elina
Hi Elina,
Glad the postcard arrived so quickly. To borrow a phrase from another novel, Anne of Green Gables, I think there’s such ‘scope for imagination’ in that picture, so I’m pleased you liked it as well.
Tash
[…] 25, 2010 by postcardia This lovely postcard arrived through my door yesterday from Elina in Finland. The picture on the front is by Finnish illustrator Virpi Pekkala, and on the back […]