Crossing the Border – England to Scotland

With every day we hear more and more about the importance of borders and the need for control, security and defence. This postcard re-enacts a moment of history when the leaders of two great nations shake hands across the border. Nicola and Theresa have embarked upon an epic power struggle that could in the future be resolved by the imposition of a ‘hard border’ where today there is none. Below is a nondescript view of another location along the same frontier, helpfully annotated to show where it’s safe to place your feet.

Crossing the Border – Herbesthal

There was a time when border disputes were a frequent trigger for international conflict. But things move on and we now live in a time where borderline enforcement is the highest priority. To mark the new era of immigration control and wall-building we present a series of vintage postcard views of frontiers beginning with the highly contested border between Belgium and Germany. In 1843 Herbesthal, then in Prussia, became the world’s first international border crossing station when the railway connecting Aachen and Liège opened to traffic. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert passed through in 1845 on a visit to their relatives. For over a century the business of examining documentation, collecting customs duties, changing locomotives and crews kept the station active and local people in employment. Station facilities expanded rapidly to cope with the growth of passenger and freight traffic and in 1890 one of Europe’s major mail sorting centres was opened in a new 5 storey building alongside the station. Herbesthal had become what we now call a communication hub. 

On the eve of the First World War, Stefan Zweig was travelling from Oostende, after one of his many holidays there, on the last train from Belgium to Germany. It was standing room only and German officials came on board at Verviers, the last Belgian station. The next station would be Herbesthal but Zweig’s train was held up while an almost continuous wave of freight trains passed in the opposite direction. Even in the darkness it was easy to see beneath the tarpaulins, the sinister forms of artillery and military vehicles. On arrival at Herbesthal, Zweig wandered the platform in search of news and discovered it to be completely occupied by German troops. By this time he was in no doubt that he was an eye-witness to a German invasion of Belgium “in defiance of the statutes of international law.” On his return to Vienna, Zweig succumbed to a brief efflorescence of pan-Germanic patriotism, attempting to enlist without success and writing in praise of the Belgian invasion he had observed for himself. By 1917 he was in temporary exile in Zurich, energetically campaigning for the pacifist road to peace.

In the post-war settlement in 1920, Herbesthal became a Belgian town until it was forcibly reabsorbed into the Reich in 1939. In 1945 it reverted to Belgium where its former importance as a border crossing was soon to disappear with the railway being re-routed some 200m. south via Welkenraedt when the line was electrified in 1966. Despite their proximity, Welkenraedt is a Francophone town while Herbesthal remains a German speaking community. This is a link to an image of all that remains of the station at Herbesthal. Previous posts on this subject can be seen by following this link.

Postcard of the Day No. 68, Grimaldi – Ventimiglia

Today’s card features the frontier between France and Italy near Menton. It’s a popular postcard subject, perhaps because of its proximity to Mediterranean resorts where international tourism first flourished. Frontiers are artificial constructs superimposed on the planetary surface continuity with mapping pens and straight edges. Ants, birds and bees can pass unhindered but human traffic is constrained and regulated. This border crossing, high on the rock-face overlooking the sea is largely unchanged according to Street View. The border guards have departed and traffic passes freely, courtesy of the Schengen Agreement. Checks were still in place at the time of this card. A chauffeur poses next to his limousine, his passengers seated in the back, their luggage stacked on the roof. It could be a storyboard for a cinematic life of Raymond Roussel, forever crossing frontiers with his devoted mother in a limo with the curtains drawn to exclude the world outside. We’ve visited this location before – follow this link to see. 

State Lines

Two postcards that feature communities divided by state lines. Above is a classic main street view with a difference. In the city of Bristol the line between Virginia and Tennessee runs down the middle of the main shopping street creating two Bristols that coexist side by side in their separate domains. A symbolic elevated sign spans the street in the distance and celebrates the anomaly. It was on this very street in 1927 that Ralph Peer rented rooms and made pioneering recordings featuring little known Appalachian performers (including the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers) that would catapult country music into the commercial mainstream. A 5 disc box set of the entire Bristol Sessions will be available soon in a luxurious Bear Family package at a very serious price. Texarkana (below) is likewise divided into twin cities but if you want to stay in Texas, you’ll have to take your chances at the Hotel Grim. R.E.M. recorded a song titled Texarkana on their 1991 album, Out of Time – any connection between the lyrics and the city of the same name remains a mystery. In the imagination of science-fiction writer, Walter M Miller, Texarkana was elevated in status to one of the two most important centres of population on planet Earth in the third millennium – sadly, in a blow to local pride, Miller later arranged for the city to be obliterated in a fictional nuclear attack (A Canticle for Leibowitz, 1960).

To the Frontier

Today’s postcard exploration of lines drawn on maps looks at the United States and its neighbours to north and south. The first postcard is a view from the Mexican side in the era of Prohibition and has been helpfully annotated by the sender to indicate the availability of alcohol. In 1940s film noir, the Mexican border was the first destination of many an anti-hero looking to keep one step ahead of the law. An image of a fugitive Robert Mitchum springs to mind, hat tipped down over his eyes, hands gripping the steering wheel, scattering flocks of sheep on the dirt roads leading south to yet another seedy hotel room and a femme fatale with an exotic Latin flavour. Two further cards show border crossings between El Paso, Texas and Juarez as they appeared in less contentious times, decades before Juarez would acquire the infamy that inspired Roberto Bolaño’s fictional re-creation in the dark and dreadful pages of 2666.



The last card is a masterpiece of vagueness and anonymity. The US – Canada border runs for 5525 miles making it the longest in the world. There are 122 controlled border crossings of which this card shows just one. The image is an epic of passivity and given the generic and featureless quality of both landscape and buildings there seems little possibility of identification. In the universe of linen postcards where reality is never less than two steps removed, it all makes perfect sense.