Snow on the Road - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph shows a delivery driver working in snow to deliver his goods.  Cue for me to show more snowy scenes,  past and present. 

 

The view from my window of a postman, adding  a spash  of colour as he trudged through snow to deliver the post.

 

Hawick in the Scottish Borders, 2001   

This was the hill down from our home to the High Street  and the supermarket.  Resourceful people were trudging down with rucksacks on their back and pulling sledges to load their shopping bags on to pull back home.    

1947 was  one of the worst winters that Britain had experienced.  The country was still suffering in the aftermath of war, with food rationing, power cuts, coal shortages - and no central heating in those days.  

 I do recall  my mother saying how hard it was to keep  my baby brother warm - he was only a few months old and the only heating in the  house  was the coal fire in the living room.  I remember waking up  to frost on the inside of the bedroom windows creating lovely  patterns on the glass.  

Below - photographs from  Earlston where we now live, courtesy of my local heritage group Auld Earlston.  

 1947   and in fine weather,  this is the main A68 road through the central Borders, linking Edinburgh  with England. 

 

 

Earlston Square,  1947 

 

Another view of Earlston Square in 1947

 looking across to the White  Swan pub.  

 

 

A farm lane under snow. 

In more recent times  

                                         Station Road  in Earlston 

 

 

Earlston Square  

If you shun taking your car out,  there are other means of travel.   

 

 

There is no date identified on this old photograph of the Red Lion Hotel in the Earlston Square.  The driver of this unusual sledge seems to be dressed very formally in a top hat and is not particularly well  wrapped up against the elements.  And who was he waiting for?  There does not seem to be any path cleared through the snow from  the hotel.   Or was it a promotional photograph? 

 

What about taking the train?   Or perhaps not!    

  Digging out the train in Earlston Station, 1947 

So why not get  out your walking boots  and enjoy a winter walk? 

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J. B. Priestley
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/snow.html

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J. B. Priestley
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/snow.h 

 

 The snow topped Black Hill in Earlston 

 

 A country scene in Earlston 

 

 

 

A riverside walk by the frozen River Teviot in Hawick. 

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jbpriest159615.html?src=t_snow

 

A picturesque woodland walk. 

 

On the  hill in Hawick with our dog 
 

 

A photo opportunity and a study  in blue and white  

 

 With thanks to Auld Earlston for the vintage images of Earlston 

 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history through photographs

 

 

 

Look HERE to see more contributions 

from Sepia Saturday bloggers. 

 

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Stand by Your Car! - Sepia Saturday

Cars and their proud owners is this weeks’s theme  from Sepia Saturday - a popular topic  and I revisit photograhs from my family collection and those of my local heritage group - Auld Earlston. 

My parents wth my Aunt Fran in the middle, with my brother and Imyself.  I have my pigtails  pinned on top of my head, Austrian style.  I presume  my Ucle Fred was taking the picture. 

Band of brothers - my father with his older  brother Fred c.1960s 

 

Dad again, John Weston (on the left) with his younger brother Charles. I was delighted to get this photograph from my cousin,  as it  is one of the few photographs I have of my father prior to his marriage in 1938  to my mother, and means a lot to me.   John and Charles were close as  brothers and often went on motoring trips together. Here looking very suave in a smart casual style of the day.  c.1936.

 

A happy photograph of my father  with a later car. 

 

 

A photograph from my cousin's collection on his Oldham Family  

 

 

  Baker's Van in Earlston 

 

From Baker to Butcher  - with a rather rickety looking vehicle  belonging to Donaldson family  in Earlston - no relation!  

 

 

 

Andrew Taylor & Sons, Ironmonger & Grocer in Earlston,
  - listed in a Directory of 1931.  

 

Back to Family 

 

A photograph of my elegant mother taken I suspect before my parents married in 1938.  She never learned  to drive. 

Like Mother, LIke Daughter 

 

 

Fast forward to 1968 (this photograph was dated)  - I am surprised that my father allowed someone to sit on the car.

 

 

This was my husband's first car  - a silver grey Ford Escort, bought just a few weeks before we first met in 1970. He was always proud of his cars and looked after them well.   This brings back memories of our engagement. It must have been love, that he actually suggested I sat on top of the car for this photograph - not something he has allowed since!  But he did spread out the tartan rug for me. For once I am quite in fashion with my  miniskirt, peter pan collar blouse,  and 1970's striped  coat! 
  

 

By 1972 we had graduated to a bronze Ford Cortina (right)  and this reminds me of the time when we were planning for the birth of our daughter - so a larger car was called for with room for the pram and all the baby paraphernalia etc.   This photograph was taken  near  Smailholm Tower in the Scottish Borders.  

 

 

 

My brother (the tiny tot in the first photograph)  with his pride and joy - pity,  though,  that the car bonnet was cut off the image! 

 

 

My mother outside our home in Edinburgh, c.1960s

 

 Mum and my Aunt Edith   - they were very close as sisters (born only a year and a week apart)  and Edith was also my much loved godmother.  Here taken c. 1965 against the far background of the historic Forth Rail Brid and the tower of the new Road Bridge, completed in 1964.  This was most likely a Sunday outing which my father enjoyed doing, but look at their formal wear  - hat, gloves and court shoes for just going out in the car!

 

 

The car daughter and I hired on our trip to New England in 1996 - my first visit there since I had spent a year working in Cambridge, Mass 1965-66.  This was in Falmouth, Cape Cod where we stayed in this wonderful cottage  and made a magical trip on a beautiful Autumn day sailing across to Martha's Vineyard.

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And Finally - to early days of the motor car  as described in a report in “The Southern Reporter” newspaper of 24th March 1898.

"MOTOR CAR SPOTTED IN EARLSTON  - A motor car passed through the village on Sunday morning.  The two gentlemen who were driving it left Newcastle-on-Tyne the previous day en route for Edinburgh.  In this neighbourhood one of the tyres got damaged  and it was resolved to put up at the Red Lion. 

This was done and the  car when it reached the hotel, being stopped for a little while,  was quickly surrounded  and examined with no small degree of curiosity, this being the first time  such a machine  has been seen  in operation here. "

It was obviously a newsworthy event! 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity  

to share their family history through photographs.

 

 

 

 

Click  HERE to find out what other bloggers have found

in this week's prompt photograph.  

 

 

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Hairstyles to the Fore: Sepia Saturday.

A head and shoulders portrait  of a young girl features in this week's Sepia Saturday  prompt photograph.  Cue for me to look at hairstyles of my family down the ages. 

 

         

My paternal grandmother  Mary Barbara Weston, nee Matthews (1876-1959) 

 

Nana Weston was born in Wolverhampton in the English Midlands, one of 10 children born to John Matthews and Matilda Such.    Her sister Fanny died tragically when her apron caught fire whilst she was carrying a candle, and she died from her burns.  Brother Arthur died in the First World War at Gallipoli,  leaving a young widow and 3 children. 

 

Her hairstyle is typical of the  1880s and 1890s.  

 

My other grandmother Alice Danson, nee English (1883-1945)

 

 

 

 

I never  knew Alice as she died when I was a baby. For many years she was my major brick wall, until last year I discovered  she had been born in a Liverpool Workhouse, though she  quoted another birthplace   in the 1911 and 1921 census returns. This photographs is part of a large family photogaph taken in 1916 as my grandfather was setting out to war.  

 

 Again her plain no nonsense hairstyle was typical of the times.

 
The impact on the First World War on the changing role of  women saw an abandonment of the  traditional long hair styles of the Victorian - Esdwardian  period to the new short styles of the bob, finger-wave, Marvel wave, shingle and Eton crop, with their popularity continuing well into the 1930's. 

                                          

My great aunt Jennie Danson (1897-1986)  who sacrificed her long plait for the new look, without telling her mother.  This is one of my favorite photographs in my family collection. Jennie by all accounts was a feisty woman  - she needed to be to hold her own, growing up with eight older brothers whose ages,  when she was born,  ranged from 3 to 20. 

 

  

 An elegant unidentified portrait in my husband's collection - thought to be a relation of his aunt Annette.   

 

 

My mother Kathleen Danson - Jennie's niece.

My mother again - with more waves this time

In the 1930''s and 1940's,   a  softer look crept in, with curls and waves all the rage, and during the war the "roll" was the defining style.  This was the age of trying to emulate  Hollywood glamour, despite the realities  of life during the  depression and war.  

My aunt Edith Danson

 

 

 

Another new look for my mother who seems to have adopted an Austrian style, with what looks like  plaits  over  her head.  She was always very proud of her distinctive widow's peak.  

Below some typical 1940s looks from my aunt Peggy Danson (in WAAF uniform), my mother and finally  my husband's elegant aunt Annette.

Pigtails to Pony Tails  to Perms characterised  my look from the  1950s onwards.

 

 Pigtails complete with kirby grips and ribbons.  

On village gala days and on special occasions, my hair was wound into rags overnight  to hopefully create ringlets - which soon fell out.  

By my early teens my hair was long and worn now in a pony tail. It was washed with a final rinse of  vinegar and rain water - my mother's idea of a beauty treatment -  and it took ages to dry in front of the fire as we had no hair dryer.

 

There is a pony tail hiding behind this Plain Jane look  What is it about moving from childhood to teenage years, as this is the only family photograph I could find.  No holiday snaps, no school photos - nothing.  

 

 I became a librarian, so had to work hard at counteracting the traditional dowdy image.  So here  is the young professional look for my first job - worn with a   mini length sweater dress  and long necklace  - all the rage then.  

 

By the late 1960's,    vanity prompted me to try contact lenses and they proved a great source of stories with friends as we recalled  tales of losing them.  I remember one occasion where I was scrambling around on the floor of a pew at church, (not praying) but  trying to find this miniscule lens.