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

All you ever wanted to know but never knew where to look .... an index of books on British Home Children

Even today when you tell people that 100,000 children were sent from Britain to Canada between 1870 and 1930, the usual response is surprise, followed by bewilderment and those simple questions of why and how?  

Of course here in Britain we have had a record of sending people out to other lands, whether it was as criminals from the 17th century, and settlers from the 19th or in the case of children to Canada and later Australia well into the 20th century.

Now there is some fine research being done, mainly in Canada, and a lot of serious work to help those who were sent as children to Australia as late as the 1970s to piece together their former lives but here in Britain there is still a deep chasm of ignorance.

Those who do pursue the topic are either a small band of historians or relatives who discover by accident that a parent or grandparent was settled in Canada.  In my case just over a year ago I made the connection between a great uncle and the British Home Child scheme which was responsible for the settlement of orphan and street children to former parts of the Empire.  My great uncle Roger was neither orphan nor homeless street child but one of those with a parent who the authorities deemed as “unfit to have control.”

When I first began researching his life and the BHC scheme I had little to go on, but with the help of people also on that search I found much that helped me.  And today many of these people I count as friends.  So perhaps this is the moment to refer to Lori who has collected together the biggest collection on the internet of books on British Home Children http://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/book--article-library.html

Her site http://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/ is a wealth of information, links and opinions which allow the researcher to lock into the growing interest and work on BHC.  Now at this point I should also mention other colleagues and friends as well as sites, but that would only distract for the moment from the task which is to highlight this index.

Picture’s from the collection of Lori Oschefski

Memories of one house on Beech Road

My mother always reckoned that if there was one certainty in life it was history.  After all as she would say “a fact is a fact” and so if you found enough of them and put them together you had a pretty clear idea of what happened in the past.

But as I have learned it is how you put them together, and what you want to make of them and so just because the world thinks Richard 111 was a thoroughly bad chap and that the Battle of Hastings was on balance a good thing, these are judgements which only work if you choose your facts selectively.

Now over the last few months I have been writing about the house we live in, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

It began as affectionate set of stories about One hundred years of one house in Chorlton, or the continuing story of the house that Joe and Mary Ann Scot lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.  And as it bumped along over 16 episodes it turned into a reflection on how Chorlton has changed.  I too have been selective about the changes I chose to write about and the pictures and facts that helped tell the tales, which meant it remained a personal account of the place I washed up in during December 1976, and bought a few years later.

So it was with a lot of pleasure that I realized that my old friend Lois who also lived here had written about her memories of the same house at the same time http://loiselsden.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/a-house-with-a-heart/

It is a wonderful take on how a house becomes part of the people who live in it, and just goes to show what facts can do when used by a good writer.

Picture; the house sometime in the mid 1970s, from the collection of Lois Elsden

Sharing the work of others

When you start a research project there is no way of telling where it will lead or who you will get to know.

So many of the people I have come to know have been all too willing to share their research, offer critical advice or just listen to what you have to say. A few have even gone off and conducted research for me.

Now I have made no secret of my growing fascination for the story of British Home Children and it was through one of the Canadian sites dedicated to recording the stories of the young people sent from Britain to Canada and later Australia that I came to know Lori.

Like all descendants of British Home Children she is passionate about the subject and in her case has led to spin off research which I would like to share.
www.firemanswedding.com tells the story of the Gillingham Park Fete Tragedy of 11 July 1929 and is in memory of Cadet Eric Edward Cheesman.
www.gillinghambattleb26crash.weebly.com remembers the American B26 crew who perished in Gillingham, Kent and Battle Sussex on 6 June 1944.

Both are wonderful examples of meticulous research, presentation and good writing.

Picture; newspaper coverage of the funeral of the victims of Gillingham Park Fete Tragedy of 11 July 1929, in the collection of Lori Oschefski