By Paul Hope

I have a real liking for this picture and hope to place it in both a social and historical context. It is a rather difficult task, because my mother spent no longer than a few minutes talking about it. During one afternoon, when she was about eighty years old, towards the end of her life, we were looking through the pictures she kept in a red Huntley and Palmers "Family Circle" square tin box. My mother would have known then, as we both did, that only she and a few other people knew the family names and relationships of those in the pictures. I would have hoped that my questions of her were sufficiently subtle, so as not to be seen as overtly saying "Tell me who these people are before you die?" So together we set about the task of looking at many of her pictures, putting names to the faces of people in the family pictures entrusted to me. At the same time I added details to the pictures, as pencil notes, both at the margins and on the backs. At the lower margin of this particular picture, I have partially rubbed my original pencil notes and inserted into the picture frame a silhouette sketch of who's who.

The picture, a family wedding gathering, was taken in an unknown back garden, with drainage pipes, garden sticks and fences in view. The picture quality and clarity of focus is exceptional, by any standard. However, there are a number of questions about the picture that remain unanswered. Who are the married couple? Who are all the guests? Who took the photograph? Was it a professional undertaking? Was it usual to take a wedding photograph in a back garden? I have no answers for any of these questions. Moreover, it is a picture in which my mother does not appear. At the time she would have only been a young child. The main difference between this picture and my mother's other old family photographs is that the subjects do not
appear to be dressed in borrowed clothing, as everyone is in his or her best "bib and tucker", and there is no rigid formal posing. Perhaps it is just because the photograph was not taken in a studio, against an artificial scenic background, that the contemporary stylistic photographic norms are largely absent.

When I look at the picture my attention is drawn to the back row and the young man fourth from the left, my great uncle Harry GRANT. When I was growing up in the early 1960's I was aware that he was disabled and had only one leg, although any particular circumstances surrounding his disability are unknown to me. I recall that he drove a blue fibreglass 'three-wheeler', then a vehicle commonly used by the disabled, steered by means of a rudder-like control handle with a lever attached to it. Uncle Harry was married to my great Aunt "Min", who is in front of him in the picture and has a baby in her arms (perhaps Dennis or Ronald "Chubby" Grant). Uncle Harry was what might now be termed Eurasian, though then I believe he may have been referred to by some as "Darkie". As I come to think about it, his youngest children Betty and June were pretty in a way I did not place then. Particularly Betty, as each of her irises was a different colour. When we were growing up, she lived just up the road from her parents in the upstairs flat at 11 Wimbart Road. I did not realise the amusing peculiarity of us living next door to someone who may have been called "Darkie", being unaware of what may have been said about us, when we were darker than all others in the road. It also meant nothing to me that Mrs. Martin, a friendly Scot living in the upper flat at 3 Wimbart Road, often sought out those of us with a darker hue to be first in her house on New Years Day for 'First Footing'.

Looking again at the picture, I am suddenly struck by the fact that if the Aunt "Min" is holding her first son Dennis, this dates the picture to twenty years or more before the start of the Second World War (WW2-1939 to 1945) - as Dennis fought throughout that war in the Royal Air Force. The period of the First World War (WW1- 1914 to 1918) is consistent with the naval uniform worn by the man in the back row of the picture. During my early childhood years the Grant family lived in the upstairs flat at 5 Wimbart Road, Upper Tulse Hill, SW2. At this time we lived downstairs and next door at No.7 Wimbart Road. Some years later "Aunt Min", "Uncle Harry" and Dennis moved down to Herne Bay. Before they left, and with their help, it was arranged with the rent man (Mr Tickle) for us to move upstairs into their flat. This smallest of house moves provided extra space, including a proper bathroom, and meant me not being third in the bath on Sunday evening - as cleanliness was said to be next to Godliness. The ceremony of the tin bath involved its carriage and procession into the house from its resting place against the back garden wall, where it hung on a rusted six-inch nail. The tin bath would be placed in the kitchen scullery and then filled with water boiled in pans on the gas stove. Thereafter, the full immersion and Hope dipping would begin.

In selecting the photograph for special consideration, I am at first drawn to the differing generations, fancy hats and best suits. Some genuine old faces of the past, with real character, and if Charles Darwin is to be believed they are faces of the future too, a proper "rogues gallery". Here are the faces of people, in the main unknown, perhaps related and mostly long dead and buried. What strikes me, in particular, is that the people appear proud and honest. These are people who interest me, and I feel proud to have them within my unknown family. The two ladies to the right of the man with his pipe, in the foreground, perhaps both bridesmaids and one matron of honour, possibly mother and daughter? Mother in a fine satin dress, waisted and full fronted, wearing gold chains around her neck and on her gloved hand. What a hat, such flowers, set off with carnations cleaved to her bosom. The older men, relaxed and just wearing waistcoats, patriarchs sporting with distinction fine waxed handlebar moustaches. Particularly worthy of note is the man in the front row, seated on a high backed chair with a decorative brocade cushion. He is a picture of good health, strong features, muscular shoulders, neatly suited and wearing a pocket watch chain. Is that his wife who stands behind and holds the top rail of the chair? Is that her mother stood beside her?

Perhaps the composition of the photograph is ordered in rows, by the reference to some hierarchical family position, and by proximity to the bride and groom? It may be that the group is composed around a vertical line, drawn through the middle of the picture, with those on the left or right representing the family of the bride and groom respectively? Is it tall to the back and short to the front, like in a school photograph? I have had to look closely, as will any viewer, taking time to "read" the picture. With many of the persons unknown, it is to the dress and composition that we must return for any clues to understanding what is going on. I notice that the groom is wearing a slightly more modern suit than the others, with his shirt collar rounded and not buttoned down like some of the others. His pocket watch chain is clearly visible and may represent an allusion to then recent past, when pocket watches were more commonly worn, as he also wears a wristwatch. This style of watch had started to achieve greater popularity during WW1, as it was considered better suited to the rigours of trench warfare.

The picture rings out with character, just after the wedding, it shows the family patriarchs with their jackets off and relaxed in their shirtsleeves and waistcoats, perhaps ready for a good old 'Knees Up'. Clearly evident is their status as no-nonsense types, whiskers waxed, a tobacco pipe in evidence, openly displaying pride with the family, and gathering around the newly married couple. Both men and women wearing fresh flowers, sprouting from lapels, waistbands, held in hands, or even tucked into a space between buttons on a waistcoat. If there is any cousin Maud isn't speaking to aunty Gladys, such discord is not in evidence here. Perhaps Gladys wasn't invited. I think this picture is perhaps typical of a time gone by. A more simple time, a more socially innocent one. Did this idyll last and will it be recreated in another generation? Only you will know.

On Friday 26th November 2004, at 1330 hours, I went to meet Ronald Grant, at his MOT Testing Centre in South London, not far from where I grew up. With the exception of a brief meeting with him in the 1970's, this was the first time of meeting in many years. I arrived there on my BMW motorcycle, parked in a testing bay area and scanned the environment for a face to remember. There were employees working and talking, who in the normal course of events might have said "… 'ere, mate you can't park it there", but nothing was said. I asked for Ron Grant and was told he was behind me, and I turned to see a long lost relative. It was good to meet, shake hands and remember. We greeted by reference to my BMW, speaking of loved machines of the past, later he kindly asked who did my MOT? Many things about the past were made clear, the photograph was taken at the wedding of his Aunt Florence SMITH to Percy Groundsell. We went to lunch at his local café, where he paid the bill. Though I belatedly offered to pay, he said that I was just like the Smiths' in the family, like my mum, always careful with their money. Having only ever considered myself a Hope, I was proud to be an honorary Smith

During the course of this meeting Ron Grant was able to provide the family name or association of fourteen people, out of the twenty-five people in the wedding photograph. In addition he stated that the baby held by his mother (Minnie), was one of her two first children, both of whom died in early childhood. Accordingly, small changes to the above text have been made.

 

 

Page last modified:
© Copyright of Every Generation 2003. Privacy Policy