Easter Joys Be Yours

Easter Joys be yours a postcard sent in time for Easter 1916. The sweet image and pretty sentiment belie the fact that the newspapers of the time were full of tragic stories about the war and the Easter Rising in Ireland. Easter Monday came later in 1916 falling as it did on April 24th. 

These are some of the headlines in British newspapers in April of that year;

Nightly German Navy airship raids on England.

Munitions factory explosion at Uplees near Faversham, Kent, kills 108 men.

Garrick Theatre Fire, Hereford: 8 young girls appearing in an amateur benefit evening performance for soldiers are killed when their costumes catch fire.

Easter Rising in Ireland:  Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclaim an Irish Republic and the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army occupy the General Post Office and other buildings in Dublin before surrendering to the British Army.

German battle cruisers bombard Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.

Gas attack at Hulluch in France: 47th Brigade, 16th (Irish) Division, decimated in one of the most heavily-concentrated gas attacks of the war.

Source; Wikipedia

Contrast the above with this letter also published in a British newspaper in April, 1916.

Dear Girls and Boys,

When you read this letter, your schools will have broken up for the Easter holidays, and you will be anticipating the pleasures of country walks in the bright spring sunshine, and finding the nests of our feathered friends. I do not think so many Easter eggs will be rolled on Monday as is the case in normal times, for I have heard of quite a number of children who are giving up this pleasure in order to send the eggs to our hospitals for the wounded soldiers.  Still, we can spend quite as jolly a time in the fields on Easter-Monday; and an orange is a fine substitute for an egg as a treat, although I should not recommend it being used as a ball. A ball made of indiarubber is the best fun, and, armed with these two and a little basket for our floral spoils, we can sally forth for our afternoon's enjoyment in almost any direction from Whitby, with the certainty of finding a pretty walk and plenty of flowers.

Source; Whitby Gazette April 20th, 1916

The news in 2016 is hardly better than it was in 1916, dominated as it is this morning with reports of a suspected bomb attack in Brussels.  My wish is that every person on earth could sally forth this Easter with the certainty of enjoying a pretty walk and plenty of flowers.

Image Richard Denman Hampson 

**Easter Joys Be Yours manufactured by M. M. Vienne of Austria an important publisher of artist signed cards covering a whole range of topics and styles.