Leonard Bentley
Piccadilly Circus: 1936
This is a Valentine's postcard showing Piccadilly Circus looking west towards Regents Street centre left and Glasshouse Street on the right. None of the usual places where there are clues to the date are available but as Andrew Colebourne states below, the clue lies among the gaggle of buses traversing the Circus. The AEC Regal Type 9T9 was one of fifty single deck buses introduced to Green Line routes in the spring of 1936, their 7.7 Litre engines soon proved unsuitable for the long distance Green Line routes and they were relegated to normal bus work. At the outbreak of war in 1939 many were converted to ambulances. One of the buses carries an advertisement for the Daily Sketch Horse Racing tipster and journalist, Quintin Gilbey, in that year he had a book published entitled "Racing for fun". Several years earlier he had been involved in a road traffic accident near Portsmouth in which his car collided with a cyclist who received life changing injuries, Gilbey was ordered to pay the man over £4000.00 damages, a massive amount of money at that time. The bus at the rear of the gaggle is carrying an advertisement for "Craven Plain". This Carreras brand had been introduced in October 1932 as a “Craven A” cigarette without the cork tip. The cigarettes were made in Limerick at the Spillane’s tobacco factory and came in a green packet sealed with cellophane, the “Craven A” cigarettes came in a red packet. In 1958 Carreras merged with Rothmans of Pall Mall and cigarette manufacture at their Limerick factory ended in the mid-1960s.
Piccadilly Circus: 1936
This is a Valentine's postcard showing Piccadilly Circus looking west towards Regents Street centre left and Glasshouse Street on the right. None of the usual places where there are clues to the date are available but as Andrew Colebourne states below, the clue lies among the gaggle of buses traversing the Circus. The AEC Regal Type 9T9 was one of fifty single deck buses introduced to Green Line routes in the spring of 1936, their 7.7 Litre engines soon proved unsuitable for the long distance Green Line routes and they were relegated to normal bus work. At the outbreak of war in 1939 many were converted to ambulances. One of the buses carries an advertisement for the Daily Sketch Horse Racing tipster and journalist, Quintin Gilbey, in that year he had a book published entitled "Racing for fun". Several years earlier he had been involved in a road traffic accident near Portsmouth in which his car collided with a cyclist who received life changing injuries, Gilbey was ordered to pay the man over £4000.00 damages, a massive amount of money at that time. The bus at the rear of the gaggle is carrying an advertisement for "Craven Plain". This Carreras brand had been introduced in October 1932 as a “Craven A” cigarette without the cork tip. The cigarettes were made in Limerick at the Spillane’s tobacco factory and came in a green packet sealed with cellophane, the “Craven A” cigarettes came in a red packet. In 1958 Carreras merged with Rothmans of Pall Mall and cigarette manufacture at their Limerick factory ended in the mid-1960s.