Bette Davis Style

Towards the end of her life, and in a fragile state of health, the inimitable Bette Davis was interviewed by Vogue. Throughout the interview, despite her recent operation, she smoked continuously but only “vegetable cigarettes”.

Quoting Colette, Smoking A Courgette

Colette, a cigarette-smoking writer, had ideas of her own on how to smoke or not to smoke: ‘A really idle person never let a cigarette go out’. That’s even truer of a cigar-smoker, where idleness is much more important than in courgette smoking.

Puff Lifestyle News

Never flick the ash off your cigar: it's a sign of disrespect for the cigar. Let it fall naturally, wherever you are (even if it’s in someone else’s car). I used to smoke cigars whilst hitchhiking: with every passing car, I’d watch the ash grow on my cigar.

A Smoke And A Poke

Tiny Tots

Postboys Growing Mail (2)

Postboys Growing Mail

Look how Rosalind Wicks recorded her son growing up next to a letterbox. In both photographs the colour of the clothes is carefully matched, right down to the sandals and socks.
I wonder, did she stop when adolescence set in - when the boy's mouth reached the same height as the mouth of the letterbox, and the two could kiss? Or is there a Rosalind Wicks postbox-postcard-take on Doisneau's 'Kiss', somewhere out there?

Postboys

Yes, Rosalind Wicks liked to post her children beside post boxes and photograph them. Her postboys were then sent out into the world as postcards. Rosalind Wicks was a postcard artist who thought both in and out of the box. She posted her boys, ‘by the box’, and then later, ‘in the box’; she posted her boys all over the world. I’ve never met Rosalind, but I phoned her a year or so ago. I said, “I was wondering, did any of your postboys grow up to be postmen?”

To be continued…

Rosalind Wicks: Postbox Postcard Artist

Rosalind Wicks is a member of The Letter Box Study Group and visits countries all over the world in search of interesting postboxes. The most interesting box in her collection is a box rescued from Butlins Holiday Camp at Filey when the camp was demolished some years ago.  She has six children (three of whom are boys - her Postboys) which feature in many of her postbox postcards.

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