Greeting Cards Tennyson, when he was the poet laureate, was reportedly offered one thousand pounds if he'd compose a thirty line verse for a card manufacturer. He sniffily turned it down and it's still true that greeting card messages, from the penny dreadfuls and the "Rude and Crudes" in Victorian times to the sometimes schmaltzy, sugary doggerel today, can still curl the toes.
But it's big business. Here in Britain we send more cards that other country in the world. Two point two billion every year. It takes a dedicated army of verse composers to feed that hungry industry and most of these writers tend to be women.
Cindy Selby met two of them, Elaine Greenall from Milton Keynes and Milly Johnson from Yorkshire.
