Love Match

This is a collection of matchbooks from the old Trocadero Restaurant before it became the current entertainment complex.

My Aunt Nellie and her beau, Philip, later to become her husband used to go to the restaurant on special occasions.

They wrote little love messages on these matchbooks and when Nellie died, I found a little collection which I now share with you.

If you can read the cramped writing, they are all endearing little billets-doux, some a little more forward than others.

The centre one gives a nice old flavour to this 1950s exchange, showing the phone number with the prefix Gerrard, none of your fancy STD codes, and the area is Piccadilly Circus W1.

It is also reversed as that particular message is a little risqué for you young folk.