sepia beach 2 - costumes and caps

Continuing with my series of old family beach photos, these are some of my favourites. Though actually, most of them are my favourites.

In this first photo are my grandparents (paternal) - Harold and Win Jiggins, and Harold's sister Queen. Win and Queen are the 2 girls standing together just to the right of centre, holding hands and Queenie with a particularly clingy costume! I can't help wondering if she realised. Harold is behind and between them.
I'm pretty sure that the lady set just in front of Win and the man to her left (with the 2 boys between them) are my great grandparents, Win's mum and dad.



Aren't these costumes great! and all the women, bar none, are wearing those mob caps, most of the little girls too.


The second photo includes my Auntie Queen again sat in the water almost centre front, next to the woman holding a little boy, and with her brother - Harold, my grandad - on the other side of her. I'm pretty certain its Win, my gran, just behind and to the left of Harold holding up the seaweed.




And this last one I like best of all due to the larking about and face pulling. This really captures a moment, doesn't it?

Auntie Queen is there again, 2nd from the left at the back and I'm pretty sure that next to her on the end of the row is her mother, my great grandmother Elizabeth. Other photos of Elizabeth are formal, and serious and usually wearing glasses but I think this is her.




and just look at those costumes and caps!

Happy Sepia Saturday - more fabulous photos over here.

Sepia saturday

This is a section from one of the family scrap-books I've been working through, and scanning - my father's handwriting.



Uncle Stan was my great-uncle, married to Auntie (great-Auntie) Queen - I just love these pictures of his grand-parents. What relation would they be to me? I have no idea.

They look so jolly and like characters who should be in a Laurel & Hardy movie.



more Sepia Saturday here


Plus
for those of you who are following them....
tadpole update!



This was taken a week ago, so I will try and update soon as they change constantly, and have begun wiggling.....

Health & Safety in the 60's

I have such vivid memories of this. Thats me on the right, with the fair hair which didn't stay fair.

I don't know how often we were allowed to scramble up the ladder and sit on the top of the garage, but its a treat I remember well - which could indicate that it happened a lot, or that it had the impact of occasional and special privilege.

Today I'm guessing that any one - parent or otherwise - who put children into such a high-risk position might be liable to reporting by neighbours, rebuking by authorities....

School trips in the UK have become hugely complicated and difficult to organise because of risk assessment procedures, and a top "nob" in the world of Health and Safety has recently urged Schools to take more risks. I applaud the sentiment, but I can't help think that thats easy for her to say, given the way Schools are likely to be criticised - if not sued - by parents if anything goes wrong.

There have also been reports in the UK of Schools banning cake sales on the grounds of Health and Safety. I remembered this as to do with allergies and other similar hazards - thats what this report suggests with its mention of the non-lethal nature of jam. ("normally" non-lethal.... hmmm)
But a quick google reveals that this may also have been linked with the issue of childhood obesity.
For which the occasional School cake-sale is responsible..... how???

I'm so happy to have grown up in a less risk-averse age and I mourn some of the aspects of childhood which may have been lost .....


.... like sitting on garage roofs.


Other Sepia Saturday posts

dad

Well we're off to see my dear old dad today, so I'm a little short of time - but an easy choice as to whose picture to post. And it seems apt, as my last 2 Sepia Saturday posts have been photos of my gran, his mother + his grandmother and great-grandmother.

Dad has had a rough patch of illness lately, but the doctor acted quickly and he seems to be doing well now - I'm so looking forward to seeing him.
It was my father's family (unlike my mother's) which was the more moneyed and had quite a lot of photos taken and even owned a camera, so theres quite a bit of choice amongst the pictures of him as a child.
Here are a couple of favourites:

Dad - Alan Henry - was born in December 1927, so this was probably taken in 1928 or possibly early 1929.



We still have this little hat - heres my Little Gem wearing it in 1995. I loved those stripey baggy trousers. And she loved that bizarre Richard Scarryesque mushroom house-thing.



The photo below was taken in 1935, when dad was 8


which we know for sure as the photo, which is hand-coloured, is in this presentation folder:




Sorry if it takes me a while to get around to visiting your blogs this weekend, I'll try to get there sooner or later...

And for other Sepia Saturday posts - look over here

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