Alston Bookshop and a Potted Postcard History

Last weekend, the weather was a bit dodgy so we decided to visit Alston and have a poke around the shops.

As well as the wonderful purple hippy palace owned by these folk (complete with “extremely open” doorsign!), there’s a great bookshop there, which I can’t find any trace of one the web. It’s one of those places which has the feel of being someone’s home, with every room stacked high with books of all descriptions; there are lots of them in Wigtown. So, I bought this fascinating book for 50p, published in 1945 but still in excellent condition, “Cooking and Nutritive Value” by A. Barbara Callow.

Anyway, this bookshop also has in one of its back rooms a table with piles of photograph albums – in fact they are used to display old postcards. The higher-valued cards seem to be those which have been unused and perhaps were collections kept by wonderful gentlemen hoarders like my grandad; but the ones I love looking at are the ones with personal messages on them, each a tiny history lesson in themselves.

I spent ages looking through them and in the end bought three postcards and the book, spending a grand total of four English quids. Bargain!

So here’s the first one I have chosen to investigate here:
Sent to Mr J. Marshall, Clifton Street, Hartlepool.
The halfpenny green stamp is franked Hammersmith, September 13th, 1909 at 12:15.
The photo is captioned “The Flip-Flap, Imperial International Exhibition, London 1909”. The image shows what looks like an early thrill-ride, which according to this site “carried riders 200 feet (60 metres) up into the air”.

The message reads:

19 Worlidge St, Hammersmith Sept 12/09
Dear Jim
Just a line to say that I have got a start at Hightons Islington 20 minutes walk from Kings Cross, 53 hours a week, wage 39/9d a week. I go to work by train every morning. Mrs G sends her love to you all. Hoping you are all well as this leaves us all at present. I remain your Old Pal Jack Garton

I can’t find Mr Marshall at Clifton Street Hartlepool yet, however according to this site, one of his neighbours at number 16, 56-year-old John Leighton, was killed in shelling during the “sea raid” on December 16th, 1914 (Reference 1, reference 2
This site names him as James Shepherd Leighton.
From all this I suppose we can presume that Clifton Street was damaged in the raids; It doesn’t appear on any online maps today.

There’s a school on Worlidge Street in Hammersmith, but I can’t find any reference to any Hightons in Islington.

So... If anyone has found this page by searching for these people let me know if you can tell me anything more about them!!

Here's the postcard: