Orkney Image Library

How strange but perhaps Ronald is/was like me as I send postcards to my mum in Orkney from all over and she sends them back to me for my collection!

Or perhaps it was with the contents of Cromwell Cottage sold in the Kirkwall Mart when the last of the Mooneys died, maybe one of a bundle of cards kept over the years. The purchaser may have kept the ones of interest to him and sold on the less interesting ones to another collector or dealer, by which route it may well eventually have ended up in a place where someone would be interested in a postcard of Hamburg, namely Hamburg!

My name is Alec Mooney and I am the nephew of the late Ronald Mooney. I will advise his eldest son, Henry, of this amazing find. If only the postcard could tell its story of where it has been all these years! I do know that my Uncle Ronald graduated with M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D., then followed his career in research and was in Berlin from 1930 to 1932 when he moved to Cambridge. He may well have been in Hamburg on holiday in 1926.

The postcard was sent by my late father to his mother. It would be very interesting to know its journey and whether it ever left Hamburg. My late father died in Liverpool in 1981 after a distinguished career as a research chemist with Imperial Chemicals. I tend to think that my cousin Alec is probably right in his assumption that he was on holiday. He used to tell me about his time in Berlin but did not mention about a earlier visit to Hamburg.