The picture with secrets ………. or what to do with Montague?

 We will all have one of these pictures.

It is undated, has no name on the back and could be anyone in our family or no one in our family.

What I do know is that it comes from a large collection of photographs which date from the early 1920s into the 50s which belonged to our dad.

They have pretty much lain undisturbed since they came north from London in the mid-1990s.  

Every so often I look through them trying to identify some of the people and the locations and others I will use for stories.

But this one has always eluded me and at the same time fascinated me.

And yet again I am drawn back to it.

I doubt that his name was Montague who was my great grandfather and belonged to my mother’s side.

It is more likely that he was connected to Dad and if so perhaps I am looking at my paternal great grandfather, which means the baby could be dad, or one of my uncles.

But dad was born in 1908 and the picture I think may be a little later.  I am pretty confident it isn’t me, so he might be my cousin Mary who was born in the 1930s.

Or it might just be a distant family member.

So, with no idea of the identity of the man or child, what do I do with the picture?

I could bin it, but that seems outrageous, and an act of betrayal on dad who felt sufficiently connected to it to have kept the picture in his collection for perhaps 60 years.

And even though Dad will never know, I will, so it will go back into the collection prompting me to ponder that I should get the entire collection in order, given that at 74 there are fewer years ahead of me than behind.

And in doing so give our kids and perhaps grandchildren a better context on what they are looking at.

Leaving me just to reflect on the scene behind the two of them with its vague view of a cut glass bowl, a fireplace and what looks like another person.

The full picture reveals that they were sitting outside, possibly under a veranda with a door to the right and a bamboo thing to the left.

And that is it.

Location; unknown

Picture; unknown man and baby, undated, from the Simpson collection