Girls Together - SepiaSaturday

 

 This week's prompt photograph from the Sepia Saturday website  features a group of young women and girls, many in white dresses and with the elaborate hairstyle of the times c. 1900. 

  

A photograph from the collection of my local heritage group Auld Earlston.  The occasion -  an outing by members of the parish church choir, c.1907, with the women at the front relaxing with hats off, once they. Ǐdthey reached their destination. 

  

My paternal grandmother Mary  Barbara  Matthews(1876--1959)  with a similar hairstyle, c.1900.  She was the  3rd  child out of ten, born to John Matthews and Matilda Such of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire in the  English Midlands and masried my grandfather Alvert Ernest Weston. 

Did you spot in the prompt picture the young girl with the long loose hair sitting at the front ?

She  reminded me of my great aunt Jennie Danson, (1897-1976)  of Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire.   Jennie was the last born child, and only daughter born to my grandparents William Danson and Maria Rawcliffe.  By all accounts she was a feisty  individual who held her own in a household with eight older brothers.  This photograph was taken  c.1909  when Jennie was would be around 12 years old.  

 

 

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From  early 20th century hairstyles  to more groups of women and girls,  all similarly dressed. 

 

Land Girls gathering in Earlston for work on local farms  

during the Second World War, replacing men now in the armed services. 

 

 

 

 

Members of Earlston Girls Training Corps   

The first Girls Training Corps units were formed in 1941.with the aim  to prepare young people aged 14 to 20 (too young for official war work)   for service in their community and to support the war effort upon reaching adulthood.  

Activities included learning to act as bicycle couriers, learning morse code and airforce recognition, gymnastics, homemaking, craft-work, public affairs, land navigation, learning first aid and marksmanship,  firefighting, and assisting with air warden duties.Within a year of forming, over 120,000 girls had joined a GTC company.  The GTS was disbanded  in 1948.  (Source:  Wikipedia) 

 

On a happier note,   - below are Earlston's Girls' Club in  their production of  "Simple Simon" , staged with orchestra in February 1939 in the Corn Exchange, Earlston,   The large chorus took the part of villagers, sailors and native girls.    A  local newspaper noted that "all the players acquitted themselves in a very creditable manner, fully deserving the warm appreciation of the audience." 

 

 

 

 

 

 Below more dressing up here  by the Junior dancers in Staining Gala Day, Lancashire. c.1952, and I am the little girl kneeling on the left of the front row, with us wearing apple green satin dresses.     

 

The Village Gala was the focal event of the calendar where we lived.   All the surrounding  villages had the their annual gala day, when the  band led the Rose Queen in procession with her maids of honour and retinue to a field where she was crowned Queen by some local worthy, followed by dancing displays  games, stalls, craft competitions, refreshment tents - and sports.  A great community event that raised spirits after the war years.  

 

 

  

And finally my school photograph c.1955   at Devonshire Road Junior School, Blackpool.   I moved on from Infants to Juniors, where the boys and girls were in separate classes - When I was  there   boys were on the ground floor,  with playground to the back, whilst girls were upstairs with our own assembly hall, and our playground was at the front of the red brick building - and "never the twain should meet"!   I think we were the last council junior school to go co-d in Blackpool, following the death of the headmistress.

 Here I am the prim little girl second from the right on the front row of seats.   Uniform was not compulsory. but see the popularity of peter pan collars, and ribbons in our hair.  We are all very regimented with hands  in our laps and crossed ankles in our Clarks sandals.   The class here numbers 43 today the maximum class side for older primary school pupils is 33.  

 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share their family history through photographs. 

 

Click HERE to see favourite family photos from other Sepia Saturday bloggers. 

 

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Portraits of Life - Sepia Saturday

 A portrait of an elegant lady features in this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt image.  Rather than a head. & shoulders or hairstyles theme which I have done in the past, I have chosen to look at Portraits of Life. .

Portrait of Childhood 

 

 

 

Funnily enough I cannot remember having any favourite soft toys, (I was a dolly girl),  though presumably the one I am clutching in this studio photo must have been high on the list.  

 

 

Portraits of Friendship

 

 

Amy Dodd was a friend of George Danson,(1894-1916)  my youngest great uncle  who, as a stretcher bearer in the field was killed on the Somme in World War One.  

 

 Annie Jolly was a friend of my great aunt Jennie Danson (1897-1986)/  There were close links between the two families of Jolly and Danson.  

 

 Portraits of Faith

 

           

                  

1,  Dorothy Chisholm was confirmed in St. Chad's Parish  Church, Poulton-le-Fylde.  She  was engaged to John Danson, my widowed great uncle, but but he was killed in 1917 whilst in  army  training.    Dorothy never married, but the Danson family maintained contact with her throughout her life  and I have memories of visiting her in a bedsit with my mother taking her some of her home baking. 

 

2.   My husband's great aunt Violet Hibbert, in her confirmation dress,   taken at  Frank & Hamilton, Ocean Road, South Shields, County Durham. 

 

3. My paternal great grandfather James Matthews (1844-1917) of Wolverhampton in the English Midlands.  John was a staunch Methodist who conducted the local church choir and I am proud to have the silver baton he was  presented with for his service to the church.

 

Portraits of Service in War 

 

                                    

1.  My maternal grandfather Willliam Danson  (1885-1962)  who was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in action iin World War One.  

2.  My great uncle George Danson (1894-1916),  William's youngest brother , who was killed on the Somme in 1916.   

 

 

          

 

 My father   John Weston  (1912-2003) of Blackpool, Lancashire often talked about his war experiences (a sanitised version I am sure)  and I am afraid it did provoke the reaction at times of “Not the war again, Dad”. It was only later that we came to realise what a life-defining period it was, and I persuaded him to write an account for his granddaughter.   I was also  proud to add my father's accounts to the BBC World War Two People's Story online.

Dad served in the RAF Codes & Ciphers Branch  and was seconded to General Bradley’s US 12th Army Group HQ. He landed at Omaha beach after D-Day and advanced via St. Mere Eglise, Avranches, Versailles, Paris, Verdun and Luxembourg through to Wiesbaden in Germany. Immediately after VE Day he was posted to Burma where he was for VJ Day. 

 

 

                                       

                                       

 

 1.  My uncle Harry Danson (1912-2001)  who was one  of the many rescued at Dunkirk in 1940 arriving home days later   still in the uniform in which he had entered the sea to reach a boat.  

 

2.  My aunt Peggy Danson (1922-1999) who served in the WAAF (Women's Auxillary Air Force, manning barrage  balloons. 

 

3.  My uncle Billy Danson (1915-1990) who served in the navy in World War Two.  

 

3.  My uncle Charles Weston (1915-1999) who was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Singapore and experienced the horrors of  forced working on the railway.  

Portraits of Success

                                  

My student days ended on graduation, - followed four years later by my brother - and look at those 1970's sideburns!  Both our parents left school at 14 years old,  and we were the first generation to go to university - something our parents were very proud of. 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share their family history through photographs.

  

  

 

Click HERE to see favourite family photos from other Sepia Saturday bloggers/  

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Trees, Seasons & Memories: Sepia Saturday

 Trees against the background of a misty mountain and in the distance a vintage car - all feature in this week's Sepia Saturday prompt image.   I like  photographing trees whatever the season and trees also make a lovely backdrop to family memories. 

 

On holiday in the Austrian Tyrol  

 Ramsau  is a small village near Berchtesgarten in Bavaria, close to the the  Austrian border.   The church of St. Sebastian was was built in 1512 and extended in 1692 in the baroque style. The footbridge crosses the Ramsauer Ache.  One of my favourite holiday photographs.  

 

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1973 - A favourite photograph with my daughter - with trees in the background  in Wilton Lodge Park, Hawick in the Scottish Borders .  

 

 

 

 

1975 - daughter a year older, with my parents  and. me in my mini skirt days! 

 

A special photograph,   as the only one  I have of my mother with her three granddaughters.   

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We have no shortage of trees  and woods in the Scottish Borders where I live - so enjoy these  calming scenes of nature at its best, whatever the season. 

 

 

A country lane with the Black Hill of Earlston in the distance.  

 

Springtime  on the banks of the River Teviot in Hawick in the Scottish Border.  

 

The Leader Water in Earlston where I now live.  The Water is one of the many tributaries of the 90 mile long River Tweed, which crosses the region. 

 

Daughter and friend having fun by the Wolfcleuchhead Waterfall in Craik Forest near Hawick.  

 

 

Sun shining through the trees in Cowdenknowes Wood, near our home in Earlston.  

 

 Autumn Gold 

 

Autumn in Dawyk Gardens near Peebles in the Scottish Borders  

  

 The Leader Water in Winter in Earlston 

 

We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful  part of the country.

 

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And finally  - not  forgetting  the prompt picture  with that vintage car , here is a misty photograph from my cousin's collection 

 

 

 

 My cousin's first ever car - a 1932 Morris Minor. 

 

The photograph was taken near Inverary in the west of Scotland on the "Rest and Be Thankful Road"  -  It gets its name as it was once a place where people  would stop, rest and be thankful that they have reached the top of their climb through the hilly pass between two glens (valleys).   

 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share their family history through photographs.

 

   

Click HERE to see favourite family photos from other Sepia Saturday bloggers/  

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A Spot on the Map: - Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire: 52 Ancestors Week 35

The small town of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire is at the heart of my Danson family history, with St. Chad’s Church at its focal point where Dansons were baptised, married and buried down the centuries, traced back to the baptism of my GGGG Grandfather John Danson. in 1736. 

St. Chad's Church in a photograph
taken by my uncle Harry Rawcliffe Danson

Poulton is a much older settlement than its more famous neighbour the seaside resort of BlackpooL, four miles to the west.  The Doomsday Book of 1086 recorded three unmade churches in the Fylde, one thought to be St. Chad’s and the first documentary evidence comes from a deed of 1094.  Registers date from 1591 and the oldest part of the present church the Tower dates from before 1638. 

Reminders of the past are visible in the  Market Square, with its market cross, stone slab for selling fish, whipping post, and stocks

 

 

 

 

   The only photograph I have of my great grandfather James Danson,  (1852-1906), the bearded figure  sitting merrily in the stocks. According to my aunt he was a bit of a "ne'er do well). 

 

 The War Memorial War in xthe Square  includes  the names of my two great uncles John and George Danson  who died in the First World War. 

 

 

 

 

St. Chad’s parish at one time encompassed the neighbouring villages of Bispham, Carleton, Clevelys, Hardhorn, Thornton and Staining.

The ancestral trail found the Danson family in Trap Farm, Carleton in the 1841 and 1851 census returns, with great grandfather James Danson born there in 1852.  How did a family of 13 including an uncle, son –in-law  and two servants, all fit into what looked like quite a small farmhouse? 

 

 

Trap Farm,  Carleton

 In 1881 James Danson, his wife Maria Rawcliffe  and two young sons were living in Potts Alley, Poulton, running alongside the church and just off the  Market Square.  Thirty years earlier, Pott’s Alley came in for some condemnation, described in a local history as “the town’s slum quarter…contained some of Poulton’s most squalid overcrowded properties….the subject of severe criticism in a public health report of 1852”.

 

By 1901 the growing Danson family were in a terraced house in Bull Street, just off the Square (since replaced by a small shopping centre).  It must have been cramped living with a family made up of James, Maria, eight surviving sons and one daughter,  and later orphaned granddaughter Annie Maria.  My grandfather William Danson was the first of the brothers to marry in 1907, making his home close by also on Bull Street.

 

 

Bull Street, Poulton.  

 

 

In 1924 the young Danson family  bought a semi-etached house at 146 Blackpool Old Road – with three bedrooms.  I still have the receipt for the deposit of £67.  It looks quite big, but, with only three small bedrooms, it must have still been a squash for parents William Danson and Alice English, 3 daughters (Edith, Kathleen and Peggy) and two sons (Harry and Billy) who all lived at home until they married.  The house had no electricity until the late 1950’s and this remained the family home until the death of my uncle Harry Danson in 2001.

 

It was in this house that I first saw the shoebox of old family photographs, the embroidered cards sent by my grandfather from the battlefields of the First World War, plus other family memorabilia.   This discovery set me at an early age on this fascinating family history journey. 

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Happy Family Twosomes - Sepia Saturday

 A little  boy and girl feature in this week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph.  Cue for me to show  some of the family photos in my collection.  

 

 

 I  know - a threesome not a twosome, but the two little children seated match the prompt so well .  Here are Florence Annie (born 1894),  Lily (born 1886) & William (born 1891)  - children of Henry Bailey & Annie McAffray of Blackpool, Lancashire,  

my great  grandfather James Danson, who was the youngest in the family of nine. Henry, a stone mason, died at the age of 41 in 1903, leaving his young family fatherless.  

 

This photograph is so sweet, but I know next to nothing about it.   It was in the collection of my great aunt Jennie Danson. At least Jennie had written the names of the children  on the reverse as Jesse and Bernard Penington.  I like the seascape background, and is that a spade that Bernard has in his left hand?    

Here are Janie and Jack Riley, c.1912 - great niece and  nephew of my great grandmother Maria Danson née Rawcliffe.    Jack later served in the navy on HMS Chester in the Battle of Jutland in 1916.  

I have  a postcard sent by Jaxck's mother to my great grandmother to say " Jack went out to sea today.  He went in good spirits".  The postmark is difficult to make out but could be 7.?? 16. 

 

  

Sitting on a regal looking chair, is Elsie Oldham,  my mother's second cousin.  Elsie was a member of the Oldham  family business  of carters and coal merchants in  Blackpool, Lancashire.  Here Elsie is with her cousin Joseph Butler standing behind her - presumably in clean boots!

 

 

 

Stuart and Gloria Smith, children of Elsie above -  looking very angelic with their distinctive fair hair.   

 

 

 More Oldham relations  in their knitted outfits.  

 Another  happy picture from my cousin's collection.  The two girls in their knitted dresses  are Dorothy Lilla Oldham (1915-1989) and Edith Nancy Oldham  (1920-2012),  daughters of James William Oldham. and Edith Keymer.  James' parents had  emigrated to New Zealand in 1906 where they ran a wholesale tobacconists and stationery business on Karangahape Road,  Auckland.  

 

 

 

 

 Happy Sisters - Ella and Edith Smith, daughters of Edward Ingram Smith,.  His was a sad story   of  a handsome youth who showed such promise ,but whose service in the First world War resulted in injury, depression and the breakdown of his marriage.

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 I could not feature a post on children, without showing again photographs of my mother's Danson family  who are at the heart of my family history.   

Below is one of the oldest photographs in my collection, taken c.1908 with my mother Kathleen Danson the baby on the right and her older sister Edith on the left.  Just one year and one week separated them in birth and they remained very close sisters all their lives, with Edith becoming my godmother. 

 

   

Edith and Kathleen at the front of a parade in Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire c. 1911.  

 

 Two  solemn little girls  in this photo taken 1916,  as their father William set out for war.  

 

  

Playing in the garden - Edith (seated) & Kathleen, c.1914

 

And finally  - my brother and I  c.1948 

 

And some 67 years later...... 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share their family history through photographs.

  

  

Click HERE to wse favourite family photos from other Sepia Saturday bloggers/  

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