Walkies, Military Memories and Busy Streets - Sepia Saturday

"Walking Along  a Busy Street" is the theme of this week's Sepia Saturday  prompt photograph. 

So take a look at towns, traffic and trams, in places ranging from Paris  and a Far East waterfront, to  am American Square, red city buses and  a seaside promenade. 

The prompt awoke my  memories of  seaside holidays and the photographers who plied  their trade along the promenades,  taking snapshots of people strolling by - hence the term  "walkies"  as opposed to  today's "selfies".  

 

 

Bournemouth on the south coast of England  - 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, (this is in August)  but look at the older man behind - in his suit, collar and tie, waistcoat and trilby hat.   

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. 

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A busy scene in the Square outside Paris Opera House, May 1940 - 
a postcard  from my father's war-time album.

 

Dad was serving in the  RAF Codes & Cipher Branch and was seconded to the  American 8th Army under General Bradley.  They landed at Omaha Beach, fought their way through Normandy to set up their headquarters at Versailles.  In Dad's own words

"With the GIs in khaki and ourselves in blue, we were very conspicuous – more so as we were so few.  We also got a jeep and as I was the only one who could drive, apart from the official driver, we used to go into Paris and park by the Eiffel Tower.  Hundreds of Frenchmen gathered there trying to buy cigarettes.

Another time I got a lift into Paris to hear General de Gaulle make a speech at the Place de la Concorde.  I was stopped by a Frenchman who said in English “RAF Sir?  My name is Joseph Calmy.   I was the Shell agent here before the war”.  I offered him cigarettes and he then invited me to a building and gave me a bag full of Chanel perfume, toiletries, powder and cream – it lasted Mum for years.  I flew back with it when I got some leave in March ‘45."

A photograph  of my father,  dated on the reverse

 September 12th 1944.

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Another "service" memory -   this time from my husband's uncle, Matthew Iley White who served in the Durham Light Infantry in China. 1937-40.  

The Bund, Shanghai, China, c.1939.   By the early 20th century,  this was a major financial centre for East Asia. 

Mattie's Service Book showing his time in China

Matthew Iley White of South Shields, Co. Durham 

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A busy place for traffic in my memory was Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass.where I spent a happy year, working in 1965-66 in Radcliffe Library. The Square was the hub of the town, with shops, cafes, commercial buildings, and the transport intersection for buses and subway. 

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More up to date on a visit to London - taking a photograph of the distinctive   red buses in the busy traffic is a must.

 

 

 

 

 

Image by digihanger from Pixabay 

 

I grew up in Blackpool, the famous seaside resort in north west England and here is the promenade,with the famous Blackpool Tower, built in 1894, it  rises to 520 feet high - key facts drummed into us at school. 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  to share their family history and memories through photograph 

 

  

 

Click HERE to find   tales  from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

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