Happy Families Together - Sepia Saturday

 This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph shows a happy group of family or friends enjoying life as they strode along what looks like a seaside promenade. Cue for me to feature more happy family groups.    

 

I was reminded of our  seaside holidays in the 1950s and the photographers who plied  their trade along the promenades,  taking snapshots of people strolling by - hence the term  "walkies"  - as opposed to the current trend for   "selfies"! 

You paid money and either collected  the photographs later at  a kiosk, or could arrange for them to be posted home to you - just hoping they would arrive and this wasn't  what we now call a "scam".  We often did our best to dodge the photographers and not get caught by their hard sell.  

Above - Dad, brother   and myself (as usual with my eyes shut on a photograph),   wearing a dress. made by my mother - little blue and green flower print with a big white collar, and my hair in its usual pigtails fastened with ribbons.  We are all casually dressed for the summer,  but look at the older man behind - in his suit, collar and tie, waistcoat and trilby hat.  

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Before the days of popular indoor flash photography, no pictures exist of my family celebrating birthdays and Christmas.  So weddings  were the main opportunity for group photographs and each tells a unique story.  

A  happy family group of my mother's  Danson family  - Edith, youngest daughter Peggy, my grandparents William and Alice, son Harry   and my mother Kathleen, with youngest son Billy missing. The three sisters enjoyed fashion and made their own clothes on a treadle sewing machine (the house did not have electricity until the mid 1950's! 

This  photograph was a puzzle, as I never asked questions about it when I could have done.  My guess as to the occasion rests on Uncle Harry wearing the carnation.    Was this his short-lived wartime wedding?  Through snatches of conversation I picked up as a child, I became aware that he had at some time married and was divorced - all very hush, hush  in those days, swept under the carpet and certainly never openly mentioned. 

It was only after his death, I found the papers confirming a marriage on 11th June 1940 and divorce in 1947.   The marriage date is significant as Uncle Harry was one of the thousands of troops evacuated from Dunkirk on the flotilla of small ships  between 27th May and 4th  June 1940. Yet here  he was married some ten days later.  

This happy photo looks to have been taken on the same occasion - my grandmother is the older lady on the front row - on her left my mother and my aunt. 

 

 

 

 

I have very few photograph of my father's family and this one is a rarity that only came to me  through a distant connection of my cousin.  It is 1930 and the wedding   of my  Uncle Fred Weston.  My father (looking very serious) is on the left, holding that large hat with his younger brother brother Charles behind.  I guess that one of the bridesmaids must surely be Madge the only daughter of the family.   My grandmother Weston is in the cloche hat next to Fred, and is that behind  her my grandfather with his face partially hidden?  I just don't know.  

 

  Onto 1938 and another post-wedding photograph.   This is the only photograph where I can identify my  paternal grandfather.  It was taken in the garden of my mother's home,  after my parent's wedding  with Mum's  parents (William and Alice Danson) on the left and my father's parents on the right (Mary and Albert Weston)

 

All smiles for my parents on the left with Mum's sister and Dad's brother on the right.

Another wartime picture of my grandmother, Alice Danson with her youngest daughter Peggy who served in the  WAAF on a barrage balloon station, her son-in-law my father, serving in the RAF Code & Ciphers Division   and,  with his Italian born wife, youngest son Billy who served in the navy.  I presume my mother was the photographer. 

 1946 and the families gather for a postwar winter wedding of my uncle Charles Weston.  I am the shivering little bridesmaid holding up my giant posy.  My father and mother (looking very elegant) stand behind me, with my grandmother Weston to her left.  This marked a period of happiness for Charles after years in a  Japanese prisoner of war.  The wintry weather did not stop the smiles!

 And finally another memorable family group as this is the only photograph I have of my mother with her three granddaaughters together, taken in 1981.

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories  through photographs

 

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