It's the picture post

But postcards used to be so much more.

They were the mobile phones of their day, says collector Mick Hird. In the golden age of the postcard, which he places between 1900 and 1914, "we were sending one billion a year through the post with messages on, because only the very rich had telephones".

He explained how it worked. "I would buy a postcard in York city centre in the morning and put a half pence stamp on and a message: 'I will see you under the clock at seven'. Back then there were four collections and four posts. Your mother would get the card by dinner or three in the afternoon at the latest. You would see it when you finished work."

So many cards flew about the place that the images on the front were not restricted as they are now to picturesque scenes or saucy jokes. Everything from a family portrait to a workplace outing was turned into a postcard. One even shows an operation in York County Hospital in 1910 ("wish you were here..?").

Mr Hird, who is 59 tomorrow, started collecting them more than 20 years ago. Then employed at the Ben Johnson print works, he had always liked old pictures of York. As for postcards, "I didn't realise they existed" until a friend brought him some to look at. He never looked back.

Another friend with similar interests, Bill Bennet, put an advert in the paper asking for people to start a York Postcard Club. It launched 17 years ago with four members, which quickly grew to 25.

But in recent years, numbers have dwindled again.

So the York Postcard Club is on a recruitment drive. "Our members collect all different kinds of postcards," says Mick, who is originally from Holgate and now lives in South Bank.

"York, Yorkshire, pubs, villages, railways and so on, and we would like to welcome any new members to the club, collecting any kind of postcards."

The club has produced its own postcard for the York Postcard Fair, held at the racecourse on Friday, March 31, and Saturday, April 1.

The fair has more than 2,000 collectors attending, and Mick hopes some of them will sign up to join the club then.

Meetings are held at the Folk Hall, New Earswick, on the last Thursday of each month at 7.30pm. Members bring, show and chat about cards of all kinds. Guest speakers also give talks.

If you want to join, go along, or see the contact details below.

Today Mick has a collection of 4,500 cards. He finds them at fairs such the one being held at York and through dealers who know the style of cards he likes.

They range in price from £1 to £80, depending on the quality and how collectible they are.

Occasionally they come for free, such as the one his mum gave him. It showed the inaugural members of Holgate Working Men's Club in 1922. "She said, 'that chap is your grandad'. His name was Alec Easton. He died before I was born.

"It's what we call a private card. They would probably have had a dozen made and then send them to relevant people."

Mick kindly brought in two of his postcard albums. Each page is packed with rare images of bygone York, every one telling stories of vanished fashions, demolished buildings and extinct ways of life. He recognises many of the city's much-changed suburbs from his work as a private hire driver.

He has organised them geographically, so the pages take you into the centre of York and out again. The journey begins on Bishopthorpe Road, along empty streets now crammed with cars, through to the racecourse.

One shows Knavesmire Road, then a private thoroughfare, with today's mature trees mere saplings. A picture of the nearby White Horse pub draws Mick's observation that it was once reputed to be a brothel, frequented by Dick Turpin.

In a series of cards, crowds of people are shown relaxing around a bandstand on Knavesmire: that was eventually moved to Rowntree Park where it was sadly neglected.

The bandstand is not the only old structure now gone. Another picture shows a ramshackle brick building, once Tadcaster Road's toll booth.

By contrast, many cards show scenes subsequently transformed by additions, whether they are new homes, offices, or in the case of one showing St Paul's Church, Holgate, the railway bridge.

A picture of the Sun Inn, Acomb, as a backdrop to hounds and riders on horseback, is only one of several depicting York hunts. "My dad took me to see it when I was a kid, especially on New Year's Day," says Mick. For him the great joy of these cards is how they act as reminders of the way things were.

More postcards lead us through cricket on Acomb Green, playtime at Poppleton Road Council School, steam cranes collecting the beet for the sugar factory, and both the maypole and smithy at Upper Poppleton.

Horse-drawn charabancs are pictured outside both the Tam O'Shanter and Rose & Crown pubs in Lawrence Street, York.

In the New Year, many readers asked for a permanent ice-rink to be built in York. There was something similar years ago - the City Roller Skating Palace, which is shown before it was rechristened the Rialto, on the site now taken by Mecca bingo.

So much of York is so different in these cards, many of which date from the early 20th century. Horse-drawn trams take the place of traffic jams in Fulford. There are more cars pictured outside Forsselius's Blossom Street Garage than in the rest of the pictures put together.

So what is his favourite card? One showing Pavement, before they knocked through to make Piccadilly. "It's quality," says Mick . "There's a lot gone: the George Hotel has gone, at least three buildings have gone. You have got the ice-cream seller. You don't see that very often in 1900 because they would have to drag ice from wherever to keep it cool."

What now for this humble form of communication? "The mobile phone could see the demise of the postcard," admits Mr Hird. "That I don't want to see.

"I'd like to think that, in another ten years, postcards are still going strong."

For more information about the York Postcards Club, email emgibs@ntlworld, or phone Mick Hird on 01904 629347