Felpham Village. And the Death of an American TV Journalist.

pepandtim posted a photo:

The Postcard

A postcard that was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd., by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, Fine Art Publishers. The image is a glossy real photograph, and the card was printed in England.

The man on the left is standing in front of a sign that reads Felpham Riding Stables.

The card was posted in Bognor Regis on Wednesday the 22nd. May 1963 using stamps to the value of 2½d. It was sent to:

The Misses Blyton,
33, Wavertree Road,
Streatham Hill,
London SW2.

The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

"Felpham.
Many thanks for your
letter.
I do hope Kate is
maintaining progress.
We return home
tomorrow. We have
so much enjoyed our
days here.
Love Constance."

The Gateway School

The sign on the left further on from the man refers to The Gateway School. The school occupied what was once a large private house known as The Forest. The house was built in 1914 south of the church in grounds of two acres which included specimen trees.

The Gateway was a mixed preparatory school which operated from 1948 until it closed in 1978. At its closure the school had 185 pupils.

The Gateway was a traditional, tightly organised prep school where mastery of the basic skills was paramount. The teachers were kind and caring, and the school routine was unvarying.

The classes were named after characteristics for the pupils to emulate: the Reception class was called Happiness, then the pupils went on to Kindness, Goodness, Unselfishness, Courage, Truth, Loyalty and Perseverance.

Grigoris Lambrakis

So what else happened on the day that Constance posted the card?

Well, on the 22nd. May 1963, Greek anti-Fascist politician Grigoris Lambrakis was assassinated shortly after delivering the keynote speech at an anti-war meeting in Thessaloniki.

Lambrakis was run down by a trikyklo (a three-wheeled delivery truck) and then clubbed by hired killers. He suffered brain injuries and died in hospital five days later.

The assassination became the basis for a novel by Vassilis Vassilikos, which later was adapted to the 1969 film Z.

David Bloom

The day also marked the birth, in Edina, Minnesota, of David Bloom.

David was an American television journalist for NBC News, who died of a pulmonary embolism in 2003 while covering the Iraq War.

He had been on assignment in Iraq for several weeks when a blood clot in his leg (deep vein thrombosis) travelled to an artery in his lungs, causing a fatal pulmonary embolism.

The clot in Bloom's leg was likely brought on by spending long days and nights cramped inside armored vehicles. One night he called his wife Melanie from a satellite phone in the middle of the night, exposing himself to hostile fire just to get a few minutes outside of an armored tank, because his legs had been cramping up.

Bloom was survived by Melanie and three daughters. The Blooms were residents of Pound Ridge, New York at the time of his death.

After David's death, his widow began working with the Coalition to Prevent DVT, and married Daniel McNulty in 2008.