Postcard of the Month: March 2023
/The Hills at Bury: Basil C. and the Chickens
The card doesn't have a postmark but, based on the catalogue number, probably dates from the 1930s. Press reports identify Mrs. Henley's involvement with hockey and whist in Littlehampton, and Basil may have been referring to the latter in his text where he mentions “having to get back to the chickens". Further evidence of family connections comes in the Littlehampton Hockey Ladies team list from 1930, where both family names appear. Perhaps these are daughter and sister to Mrs. H. and Basil respectively.
An engagement report from 1910 shows Commander Charles Beauclerk Henley of the Royal Indian Marine pairing with Nellie Barbara Stranack, both then living in India. She became the Mrs. Henley on the postcard address.
This card, probably published by Hamiltons of Brighton, is a pleasant but unremarkable view and would seem an unlikely choice for this month. It is the text that provides the story which brings together two family names, familiar from other Bury sources. The addressee, Mrs. Henley could be connected with the local barge operator, while the sender Basil Constanduros’s aunt (his mother’s sister) was Mabel Constanduros, a well known national celebrity, actress and broadcaster who lived in the village. She wrote the introduction to the book ‘All About Bury’ referred to in the Bury video elsewhere on this site.