by Martin Jefferies

Saucy seaside postcards are as much a part of Thanet's resort heritage as kiss me quick hats, sticks of rock and jellied eels.

Promendade gift shops in Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs were once packed with the colourful and risque cartoon artwork - and a nostalgia boom means a return is on the cards for the world-famous pictures.

Businessman Ian Wallace owns the rights to around 50,000 of the postcard images after buying Bamforth & Co nine years ago.

Now, as the firm celebrates its 100th anniversary, he is to sign a licensing agreement which could see the images feature on everything from mousemats to mugs.

Dr Nick Hiley, head of the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent, Canterbury, said: "These postcards were enormously popular, especially in the inter-war period when a customer in Blackpool, for example, would order one million of them at a time.

"But after all these years, they continue to have a place in the nation's heart. I think many people still regard them as part of the seaside holiday because the images encapsulate not only that release from the routine of working life but also the sexual freedom which is sometimes associated with the coast."

Risque postcards like those produced by Bamforth & Co might have been a hit with holidaymakers but the authorities did not always see the funny side.

Shopkeepers in east Kent who sold the cheeky cartoons are known to have been prosecuted in the 1950s on the grounds of obscenity.

Police would occassionally raid kiosks and seaside stationers to remove stock that was deemed offensive, while some resorts even set up committees to approve or censor new postcards before the start of the summer season.

Dr Hiley said: "It wasn't unheard of for dealers to burn tea chests full of these condemned cards because the authorities had decided they were inappropriate.

"The prosecutions started in 1951 and continued for around 10 years until the famous Lady Chatterley trial in 1960 [Penguin was famously prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act for publishing DH Lawrence's novel, only for a jury to return a 'not guilty' verdict at the Old Bailey]."