Nineteen men .......one driver and a dog ……….

Now I suspect you can make many things of this picture of a “men’s outing” somewhere at some time before now.

And I shall start with the one certain thing I know which is the chap standing on the back row to our left with that jauntily placed hat is our dad.

He spent his whole working career from when he left school at 14 around motor coaches, and as soon as he could qualified as a driver.

His early years were with several coach companies in and around Newcastle before moving south to London in 1932 to work for Glenton Tours of New Cross.

Glenton’s were one of the premier coach companies, offering luxury tours of Britain and the Continent and our dad was one of their drivers.

His skill, professionalism, and dedication to the job saw him swiftly promoted to driving tours across Europe, from France, the Low Countries, and onward to the French, Italian and Swiss Alps from the mid-1930s.

The holidays involved seven to fifteen days, taking in the sights with overnight stays at luxury hotels, and accompanied with a detailed itinerary and a courier to point out the more interesting sights.

All of which was yet to come when Dad posed for this picture, which I think must be before 1932 when he was still employed to drive passengers on mystery tours, trips to the “scenic North East” and of course those works outings.

And if pushed I rather think that the nineteen men and the dog were just such a “works outing”.  We called them a “Beano” or “Jolly” and while the ostensible plan was a day at the seaside, the journey was punctuated with frequent stops at passing pubs and fortified by crates of beer for the bits in-between.

All of which takes me to the picture.  They are a mixed bunch, these party goers, dressed in their finest with flat caps winning out over the more stylish hats, and the fob watches on display.

We will never now know whether this was a works do or a day out from their local pub, but the range in age with the oldest in his seventies might suggest a pub outing.

And that leads me to reflect that this picture takes us effortlessly back to the 1860s and maybe into the decade before.

At which point I must guard against that silly observation which all of us can make, that here are a group of men who have seen and come to terms with great changes, from the wireless, and the motor car, to the telephone and the cinema.

It is silly because it is also true of other generations down the centuries.  

Our Uncle George was born in 1898 and died in 2001, and so not only welcomed the wireless, and the motor car, telephone and cinema, but talked happily to his nephew and nieces about their holidays by air to foreign places and was curious to know how he could use a computer .

But I digress there is much more in the picture but that I will leave to you.

Other than to say this is still the time when a man or a woman with a cigarette would not have seemed odd.

Indeed in the collection of about 50 photographs of Dad from the 1920s through to the 1950s there are a few where he hasn't got a cigarette in his hand.

And just finish with that other obvious observation that it is all men.  But Nana I know did regularly Take  trips out into the Derbyshire countryside in the 1930s and 40.

So that is it.

Location, somewhere, at sometime

Picture; Nineteen men, one driver and a dog, undated, from the Simpson collection