Stories behind the pictures ………

Now I never tire of looking at other people’s family pictures.

Mrs Wyatt, Kathleen and Mrs. Lines, date unknown

More so when they stretch back to the beginning of the last century and include just enough clues to set me off looking for the story behind the photograph.

And so, I was very pleased when Frances offered to share some from her family album., which “were of my aunt's family, but she was my aunt by marriage, so I don't know any of the people in the photos”.

All of which presents the challenge and that wish to bring them back out of the shadows.

At which point I do have to say that “bringing them back out of the shadows” seems a tad pretentious and raises the question of whether they want to be brought out and can be argued is an unwarranted intrusion.

Unknown woman, undated

But then that has never stopped me.

So, to the pictures of which there are many.

Susan Line, & Jean, Torquay, date unknown

Some are very formal, taken by a professional photographer and made into picture postcards, while others are the classic snap, taken in the moment and then forgotten.

Luckily most of the collection comes with names, locations and even dates, all of which will make it easier to track them back across time.

Added to which some names are repeated and even form part of a wider group of images which show one individual as a child and later training as a nurse in Blackheath.

Nurses, Starting, Green, Leadbetter, & Lines, May 1931, Blackheath

What I particularly like are the unusual shots ranging from an elderly woman on a motorbike in Torquay to a mother and child outside a tent, a scene from the Lido at Lugano and an unnamed, and undated woman in formal pose.

The Lido, Lugarno, unknown date

But what I particularly like is the snap of Mis Wyatt, Kathleen and Mrs Lewis, somewhere in I guess the 1920s and 1930s.

It is the mix of a casual pose, the smile of the woman in middle and those fashionable clothes.

Some of the individuals will be easier to find than others, and the most promising seems to be Jean Lines who appears in several images and was training to be a nurse in Blackheath in southeast London in 1931.

Equally promising might be the picture of Geoffrey H. E. Lines, aged just 6 months “at Blackpool, 1917, outside Father’s tent”.  

It should be possible to find him in the record but raises tantalizing questions about the woman.  Was she, his mother, and why were they staying in the tent?

Geoffrey H. E. Lines, aged just 6 months at Blackpool, 1917

We shall see.

Location; all over

Pictures; early 20th century, from the collection of Frances Jones