Somewhere, sometime before the Great War, pictures with secrets

Sometimes a picture stubbornly refuses to give up its secrets.  

And yes I know it is daft to liken a photograph to a person but this is how I feel every time I try give it location or a date.

We are sometime in the first decade or so of the last century.  Yet until someone can up with more I am stumped.

But that doesn’t stop the picture providing us with a wonderful amount of detail.

Judging by the number of people without coats we must be on a warm summer’s day and yet there is still a formality about the dress of everyone in the scene.

The women wear hats the boys have those classic Edwardian suits with the large white collars and the little girl has that familiar smock and bonnet.

And as if to remind us of how far we are from today there is not a motor car in sight.  Waiting by the level crossing is a horse and cart, while away by the station and lined up to collect passengers from the train are a variety of traps and carriages.

Where ever we are it is in part a working area.  Beyond the railway line and partly hidden by the station box is a factory.

But of all the detail it is the pram and the children that draw you in.

I doubt today whether any of us would be comfortable at leaving a baby and the young girl in the charge of two lads not yet more than ten and leaving them so close to the railway and factory.

Of course their parents may be just out of the shot and like the dog on the other side of the road about to make an appearance.

Sadly I will never know.

Picture; from the collection of Alan Brown.