A Manchester Family

Today's collection of photos come from a huge haul - the largest I've seen - that appeared on my desk late on Friday afternoon. I've barely scratched the surface, but the following images are the ones that made an immediate impression.

It will take time to trawl through the contents. So far, all I know is that the family in these pictures lived in a council house in Manchester. They may also have had an Irish connection, as there are lots of photos of rugged scenery and priests:




This photo would be entirely unremarkable, if it wasn't for the fact that the man looks as he is emerging from a hole in the ground.

It's a novelty to see anyone on a scooter these days, particularly an older woman. But in my childhood, I remember several local mums and grannies beeping at me as they whizzed past, with several bags of shopping precariously balanced at the back.

An idyllic scene. Would a scooter holiday be feasible on today's congested roads, with juggernauts and 4x4s rushing past?

Is she really grabbing the seagull by the foot?

I'm fairly certain that the seagull-assaulting scooterist is an older incarnation of the girl of the middle.

I had no idea that flat caps were so big in the north - literally. In my family photos, even the poorest men usually wore hats, but caps were obviously de rigeur in this part of the world.

I rather like this woman's tea cosy-style hat (I shall refrain from passing comment about anyone else in the picture).

The caravan holiday: outdoor loos, gas lighting and a communal water pump. A far cry from today's caravans, with their en suite bedrooms, satellite televisions and electric ovens.


There are many photos of holidays in the British Isles, but also a few from more exotic locations like Gozo:


Out of the hundreds of black and white photos in the collection, this one stood out: a lovely portrait, beautifully lit and composed.

I also like the 'staged' pose in this photo.

I though that rowing was supposed to be a pleasurable activity, but the grim expressions on these people's faces suggests that they've just had a terrible row (as in rhymes with cow).

These photos could end up being the visual equivalent of Derek's diaries - there are several boxes worth, including a number of letters. As usual, they were almost thrown in the skip. Many of the pictures are quite commonplace, but as I hope this selection has shown, even the most ordinary lives have something remarkable about them.

Between the Wars

Here is a completely random selection of things that caught my eye at work last week. There isn't any particular theme linking these items, except that they all come from period between Armistice Day and the end of the Second World War.

This photo was found in a 1939 Barbara Cartland novel. These days, the Iron Cross inspires a reaction similar to the swastika, but we mustn't forget that once it was merely an innocent symbol of Prussian militarism.

This beautiful bookplate comes from a huge collection of novels that once belonged to Belfast's public libraries. I hadn't heard of most of the books. Indeed, when I first opened the box, it looked as if the contents had come from a parallel universe (I shall have to write a blog post on these titles).

Libraries are, of course, very much in the news at the moment, thanks to the Government's spending review. Everyone likes libraries, even if we don't always use them. Libraries are the hallmark of a civilised society, so why are they being threatened with such drastic cuts?

I has assumed that public libraries were very expensive to maintain, but not so, argues Joanna Trollope in yesterday's Guardian newspaper. Her local county council's libraries account for a mere 1.45% of the annual budget, but in spite of this, they are still being cut by more than 50%.

Andrew Carnegie must be turning in his grave.

Another attractive bookplate. I like the idea of the Seafarers Education Association and can imagine lots of sailors puffing away at their pipes, being lectured on the finer points of Renaissance art.

There isn't much to say about this, except that it has a very attractive typeface, particularly the big As and Os.


This photo fell out of a copy of "The Hound of Death" by James Barlow.


I found this striking colour plate by Dodo Adler in a 1940s book called "Fairy Tales from the Balkans". Surprisingly, the book isn't even worth a tenner.


I had no idea where this is, but I guessed that it would be somewhere like Torquay and typed the name into Google images. Three seconds later, my theory was confirmed with this photo of modern-day Torquay:

If you're not from the UK and haven't heard of Torquay, it is part of the "English Riviera" (not quite an oxymoron, but it certainly doesn't have the same ring as French Riviera) and was the setting for Fawlty Towers. A lot of people retire there.

The picture of the harbour comes from a 1920s album of photographs that feature people enjoying themselves in Torquay and Dartmoor.

The album doesn't have many images that are worth posting, but I quite like this:

I would love to know who these people were and what their connection was. The other photos feature games of tennis, trips to Dartmoor and clifftop walks. It all looks very appealing.

The album also includes this picture, from the days when the Royal Navy was the largest in the world:

Today, this probably is the Royal Navy. But there's more to life than ruling the waves.