THE golden age of British seaside holidays is being rekindled - through the bawdy images featured on classic saucy postcards.

A private collection of original illustrations is about to go under the hammer at Tennants of Leyburn, when more than 80 illustrations will be sold in group lots.

However, those who remember spending just a few pennies on their holiday laughs will now have to dig a little deeper - with estimates ranging from £300-£500 to £700-£1,000.

Often crossing the line of good taste, they were the visual counterpart to the working men’s club joke and the music hall comedy turn.

With stock characters such as fat ladies, small, hen-pecked husbands, courting couples, and heaving bosoms aplenty, the bawdy postcards were adored by millions.

All the illustrations in the collection were drawn by artist Arnold Taylor for Bamforth’s - a family firm of printers established in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire in 1870, which was renowned for its artist-drawn comic postcards. By the 1960s Bamforth’s was the world’s largest publisher of the comic card, and produced more than 50,000 comic designs.

Arnold Taylor was one of the most prolific and best known of Bamforth’s team of artists. He joined the firm in 1926, and worked there until his retirement in 1987.

“The increasingly risqué subject matter in his illustrations forms a fascinating social documentation in public tolerance for this fun but bawdy British humour,” said a saleroom spokesman.

Alongside the full colour illustrations are simpler, sketched versions of the postcards, which were sent to the Blackpool Postcard Censorship Board for approval – and from the stamps on the reverse it is clear that many were denied.

The auction will be held on June 21 with the second part of the collection, being sold by the family of Arnold Taylor, going under the hammer later in the year on October 18.