The Giant Picture Postcard Project

Godfrey Holmes walks along a Withernsea promenade to witness an exciting initiative to disguise a derelict, burnt-down nightclub

What is the seaside? This East Yorkshire town’s answer lies in its rich community history (Godfrey Holmes)

I shall never forget it: the experience of seeing an abandoned seafront development in Ramsgate transformed by artwork. The site, surrounded by huge boards, each colourful panel representing one artist, photographer or school’s answer to the question: What is the seaside?

Is it gulls? Breakwaters? Sandcastles? Punch and Judy? Beach Huts? People flocked from London, Birmingham, Lincoln, Cheltenham – wherever – to see the vision.

Curtains all round – Ramsgate’s future happening on the other side (Project MotorHouse)

What exactly happens when a construction firm runs out of money or materials? The faded, jaded resorts of Thanet, Margate, Ramsgate, Cliftonville and Herne Bay were left in limbo far more than the South Coast. Nor has the Lancashire Coast escaped almost irreversible decline in the face of financial plight and planning blight.

The Great Wall of Ramsgate – founded a decade ago (Tripadvisor) (tripadvisor)

But Ramsgate isn’t the only resort to employ such creative means of regeneration. Rewind to 2012 – Withernsea, on the wild and windy Yorkshire Coast. A great sun lounge, latterly a derelict nightclub, has burned down in a key position on central promenade, almost adjacent to the quaint pier towers.

Four years later little had changed and the former Teddy’s Nightclub was still surrounded by unsightly naked hoardings. Sculptor Torkel Larsen and local historian Phil Mathison put their heads together on how to disguise the shielded footprint of new apartments that might never materialise. So it is they envisage the pioneering Giant Picture Postcard Project: feasible by marrying the twin technologies of digital scanning and roadside advertising.

Pier towers, Withernsea: a stone’s throw away from the Giant Picture Postcard Project (Godfrey Holmes)

A joint pre-occupation with collecting vintage picture postcards is thrown into the mix. And these postcards are going to be gigantic: 2.5m wide and 1.5m high.

After successfully putting in for East Yorkshire’s permission – as well as also “Big Local” grants from the Lottery Fund, money reserved for community-led initiatives – Larsen and Mathison hastily assemble 50 black-and-white postcards representing Withernsea’s past. Some from lofts, others from junk or charity shops, yet more from fellow enthusiasts.

The race is then on to select the best 25 images, enhance them and send them off to a billboard creator – each finished product costing £220. But being by the great North Sea, it takes a little more to get the mission accomplished. Each mind-boggling photograph must be coated with an acrylic substance and surrounded by treated roof battens. These battens must in turn must be stained – before builders securely fasten each postcard to its dedicated panel.

The great day: unveiling stage one of the Giant Picture Postcard Project on 18 July 2016 (Godfrey Holmes)

Eighteen months later after the first postcards were revealed – storms, delays and setbacks overcome – the Withernsea initiative is still unique. And startlingly successful. Everybody stops to examine detail, to recall their childhoods – and to chat. Truly Larsen and Mathison have realised their dream.