Well, well. An eBay listing reveals that many saucy ‘seaside postcards’ were actually produced in… Stoke-on-Trent. Hartshill to be exact, by one “Thomas Trow”. The Cartoon Archive has more information…

“Thomas Trow (1909-1971) of Stoke-on-Trent, whose address appears on the reverse of surviving artwork, as the Greyfriars Art Studio.”

This is what they looked like when finished and on the racks…

Trow’s old house at 24 Vicarage Road is an unassuming terrace on the short road that runs back of the Jolly Potters pub, going alongside the church to reach the middle-top entrance of Hartshill Park. For a while he appears to have also published cards as “Trowel Publishing”.

Unfortunately I can’t find more about him, other than that he was actually prosecuted. It’s difficult to imagine that saucy seaside postcards could be prosecuted by the police in the courts. But that was how it was until about 1966 and, according to The Cartoon Archive, his were prosecuted at least once by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Once there’s a new permanent landlord in the Jolly Potters, they might want to put up a small display of his funniest postcards and an information plaque. Although in these censorious and humourless days, I suppose that might bring the police around again.