Saturday, February 27, 2010

female generations - Sepia Saturday



This is my paternal grandmother again - Winifred, Winnie - as seen in my last Sepia Saturday post. In this photo, I can see definately my gran as I knew her, especially around her eyes. She was always "Gran" - my other grandmother was "Nan".

Here Gran is with her mother, Annie, in 1917 when she was 16:

What a world away from my daughter, who will be 16 this September !


This was Gran's maternal grandmother, Annie's mother.



She seems to have lived a fairly long life, there are some photos of her in later years,
with her hair still just like this - piled up on her head.




And this is her paternal grandmother, my great-grandmother Margaret France, born 1850 and died 1874. I don't know how or why she died so tragically young.







you will find more Sepia Saturday posts here

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Bottles

Well this is another Theme Thursday topic which fits right in with my habit of snapping pictures of the Lost, Abandoned and Rubbish.

So here are three of my favourites:

green


Ipswich, Suffolk


and brown


South London



and festive


South London, by the Thames, on January 1st



What I like about these is the way each of them suggests so many stories...

what stories do they suggest to you?

Monday, February 22, 2010

Weather

Our London forecast for this week:





As my old Grandad used to say :

whether the weather be cold
or whether the weather be hot
we must weather the weather
whatever the weather
whether we like it or not.



True 'nuff.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

sepia saturday

Unlike my maternal grandmother, my dad's mother was much photographed. We have photos of her as a child, as a young woman, newly married, with my father as a baby...



She was an only child, which - along with being in a different income bracket - may be part of the reason. An only child in a comfortably-off family, so unlike my nan in a very large working class family.



She may have been rather spoiled - she was, as my father puts it, "rather difficult".
As kids, we loved her - she was funny and made us laugh.

I have a hand-coloured version of this last photo, I'll try and find the time to scan it in and add it here.




ADDITIONAL
So, here is the hand-coloured version:



Look here for other Sepia Saturday posts

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Bells




Bell is the Theme Thursday post for today - and lots of bells are ringing around Blog-land for Barry, who will be ringing a bell as he leaves hospital today at the end of his chemo. Wishing you well Barry!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

sepia valentines



M and I have never really celebrated Valentine's, but our wedding anniversary is Feb. 12th so that gives us an excuse, if ever we need it.

And being the day between our anniversary and Valentine's, what else could I post but a wedding photograph?

This is a slight cheat as I've posted this photo before, but there are two reasons I'm re-posting it :

first, because its the wedding of my nan and grandad who have featured in the last couple of Sepia Saturday posts.

Second, because its a particularly special photo. My mum's family don't have too many old family photos - certainly when compared with my dad's family. My nan and grandad weren't great ones for keeping things, and they came from working class families with little time and money to spare. So there are no photos of my nan and grandad themselves before around the time they got married, none of them as children. A few of my mum as a child.
And we thought there was no wedding photo.

Until this was found at the back of a photograph of my great grandmother.

My grandad gave the photo of his mother to me, in its old heavy dark oak frame, when I was a teenager and he saw that my walls were covered with sepia photos. (Mixed in with the David Bowie, David Essex, Pete Duel, David Cassidy). Its a wonderful photo and my grandad, my uncle and my mum all look so like her.
Which means that probably I do too.

I was so delighted to receive this treasure from little grandad and it was on the wall in our first two homes. But it wasn't until about 15 years later when we moved to this house in London that I took it out of its frame to clean it all up.

And so, I found this other lost treasure.

And a further treasure is the memory of my mum's expression when I gave it to her.

Its now been copied and passed around the family, and my uncle Vic has annotated it for us.
Only 6 people unknown from the group of 35.



Its the only photo we have of their wedding, and also the only photo we have of various aunts as children - my nan's younger sisters sitting at the front of the picture to the right. Aunt Daisy - from my last 2 Sepia posts - is right next to my nan, and my grandad's mother, whose photo he gave me, is 2 to his left with the hat with the white feather standing up. She's noted down as "Granny Walker (single name unknown)".

Don't they all look fine? my mum was so proud, looking back, of the way they'd pulled out all the stops to look fine and celebrate.


This was going to be a short post! I'm short of time! was in a hurry!

but this is one of the things I love about Sepia Saturday - the way these faded faces draw out stories from the past.

The final words in this rather wordy post are by Carol Anne Duffy, I love this poem and had planned to use Valentine's day as an excuse to post it.

And in fact, it somehow seems so appropriate to thinking about my dear grandparents. Hard working and unsentimental, not often demonstrative and so very loving.

Here they are arriving at my wedding, 26 years ago, both in their late 80's:


I remember during the service they made us smile, my nan saying something rather loudly about his hearing-aid, he shushing her.

and here is "Valentine" by Duffy:

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.





more Sepia Saturday posts over here

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Mirrors ....

... on the outside:


This top building is right on London Bridge - and you can see the Gherkin reflected to the back right, one of London's most famous (and favourite) buildings now, designed by Norman Foster.




The other photos here are of a much earlier Norman Foster building - the Willis Faber & Dumas building in Ipswich, Suffolk.




















Theme Thursday

Monday, February 08, 2010

caught




I'm reluctant not to post something on a Monday or Tuesday .

Theme Thursday and Sepia Saturday are great, I love them and they make posting easier when life is busy.
But I sort of feel that at least once a week I ought to come up with something entirely out of my own head.
Which might just be rather silly, especially as my work hours have gone up recently and I'm more than usually pushed for time.

But I'll keep trying for now.

And this photo is a little how life feels just at the moment - complicated and not entirely comfortable, with potential sharp edges, but moments of colour and interesting shadows.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

simple sepia things

Simple things - Enchanted Oak is giving money for Haiti in response to posts and links about Simple Things today. The simple pleasures of life...

And not only are family photos simple things in themselves, to be cherished - but these photos below are about simple pleasures of life - dozing in a deck chair on a sunny afternoon, a day out on the heath...









As my sepia saturdays have been about my mum's family for the last few weeks, I'm sticking with that for the time being and so here are some more of my lovely nan and grandad.


More Sepia Saturday posts will be linked from here

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Red

in the lost and found....









Theme Thursday