A set of saucy postcard paintings rescued from a skip in Calne sold for more than £2,000 at auction last week.

The 25 works by Phil Millar – nicknamed Pedro –were the original designs for a set of Carry On-style cards popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

The pristine watercolours were almost lost when they were dumped in 1989, but Des Hudd, 69, who runs Kwikskip with wife Barbara, 55, found the paintings stuffed in a plastic bag and decided to keep them safe.

Mr and Mrs Hudd ran the business from his home in Oxford Road.

The couple moved to Hatherleigh in Devon five years ago, but their son Martin still lives in Calne and has continued the business.

Mr Hudd Snr said: “When we collect the skips in, we take everything out to recycle and that was how I found the postcards. I’m a bit of a magpie and thought they might be worth a few bob, so I kept them in my loft until now.

“I was always a fan of the naughty postcards so was overjoyed when I stumbled across this pristine collection.”

The paintings were sold individually for prices ranging from £40 to £130, contributing to a total of £2,250, including premium, last Wednesday at an auction in Warwickshire.

“I was amazed,” said Mr Hudd. “I didn’t think they would make anything like that.

“A month or so ago we saw more or less the same thing on television, so we thought we would sell them to see what they made.”

Mr and Mrs Hudd travelled to Warwickshire to watch the sale.

Colin Such, postcard expert for Warwick and Warwick auctioneers, said: “You cannot get any rarer than this set of pictures which show just how suggestive the humour was in the 1960s.

“It is a thrill to see the original paintings these postcards came from, because they were part of the fabric of the times.

“They sold very well – one or two were better than others because some had sticky tape marks on them.

“I think the subject matter contributed to the popularity of the items.”