I don’t know of anyone who actually plans to work as a Greetings Card writer – everyone I know who does it has stumbled blindly into it. It’s one of those strange jobs that no-one believes exist and that those jokes and rhymes appear on cards in the shops as if by magic. It’s also a lot harder than it looks being a one-man joke factory, sitting down to a blank screen churning out witticisms day after day locked up in an attic with only a kettle for company. And companies have to know they can rely on you to come up with a quality poem for a 21st birthday in 10 minutes flat.
I started by having loads of poems and jokes left over from my days doing caberet at University (don’t ask). I went into WH Smiths armed with a notepad to scribble down the addresses on the backs of cards so I could send off my wares to them in the hope that they would supply me with a little pin-money ( I was too poor to buy them!) Luckily for me my timing was superb and one of the companies that I wrote to – Statics – was just about to launch a new project – PURPLE RONNIE – and I got to write a tiny amount of the early ones – but it was brilliant kudos on my writers CV. It was still 10 years before I did it as a full-time job, and that was only because I was pushed out of my nice warm job whilst I was pregnant. Sink or swim time. I swummed for my life. It’s a fantastic job to have and though I do it only part-time now, I’ll never let it go completely.
There aren’t all that many of us that do this job - it takes a particular sort of warped brain, I think, to work like we do without being driven completely mad. In saying that – the friends I have in the business ARE completely mad – but in the very nicest way possible!
Click on the thumbnails below to reveal a larger version and the story behind the card.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
