Every Wednesday afternoon I work as a volunteer at our local Oxfam shop. Charitable Sheffielders bring in their unwanted possessions in plastic bags or cardboard boxes. You never know what you are going to get - from a Barbie doll to a dead man's pin-striped suit. or a battered cricket bat or a lampshade with frilly bobbles. And there are plenty of books. I spend a lot of my time processing book donations - upstairs in the books and bric-a-brac room.
Today as five thirty and the end of my shift approached, I noticed an old photo album on one of the cluttered shelves. I dipped into it for personal interest. It was filled with old postcards from the nineteen twenties. Back then, many family portraits were printed in postcard form so the album contained a mixture of family photos and souvenir postcards from exotic holiday locations like Blackpool, Ilfracombe and The Cheddar Gorge.
In the middle of the album, I spotted a sepia photo that took my breath away because it contained the image of a woman who is almost identical to a certain female blogger who often drops in to "Yorkshire Pudding" and leaves comments. I just had to buy the postcard The long deceased babe from The Roaring Twenties is so beautiful and so dainty, dressed in her best dancing outfit. She could so easily have been Miss World 1922. Of course, I do not wish to embarrass the lady blogger who is this woman's doppelganger but I think we can all guess who she is:-
I'd love to know the story behind that photo! (Don't look on the reverse side because I don't think it's there)! :)
ReplyDeleteThere's only a handwritten name on the other side - "Miss Hough".
DeleteI enjoy old photographs. I'd have been tempted to buy the lot.
ReplyDeleteIt was a bit naughty of me to even buy this one as the album has been set aside and not yet priced up. I also love old postcards. There was one I often used as a stimulus for imaginative writing - a sepia coloured family in their Sunday best all looking apprehensive.
DeleteIs one allowed to call people sepia coloured these days?
DeleteAre you accusing me of prejudice against the sepia race?
DeleteAbsolutely not YP. I can't imagine you being prejudiced. Un-PC is another matter though.
DeleteUnPC? Yes, I have never been a police constable!
DeleteI like the way she looks at ease with herself, in spite of being rather on the pudgy side and wearing a dress that does not do anything for her. These days, too many women complain about their weight and figure (without actually doing anything about it, apart from reading endless women's magazines with tons of advice they never follow). You won''t easily see a girl her size so proudly showing off a dance dress in 2015.
ReplyDeleteOld photographs are fascinating, even if I don't know the people on them or have no relation to them, I like looking at their faces, postures, clothes, and think about what they were like when they were moving, speaking, laughing.
They are like windows into the magical world of the past when people didn't know how the future would unravel. And you are right Miss Arian, back in the 1920's there wasn't as much pressure to conform to media notions of beauty.
DeleteThe use of postcards for personal photographs has come full circle. It is now possible (and becoming ever more common) to send postcards anywhere in the world directly from one's smartphone. I find it particularly useful to send images of events to friends who do not used social media or even emails.
ReplyDeleteYou are a techno wizard Graham even though it seems that the Isle of Lewis has Rubber Band rather than Broadband.
Delete"Och Hamish, wind the damned thing up again will ye? The beardy fellow from Eagleton is trying to use the Net again!"
"Give it a mo Jock ahm finishing ma piece!"
"Aye it can wait. He's probably trying to get intae Naked Highland Lassies again!"
"Dirty old man!"
If the lady blogger you're thinking of is the lady blogger I'm thinking of, then, YES, the two faces are almost identical!
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the face Bob - it's the lithe body and the cultured dress sense too!
DeleteAn odd picture. She looks like a ten year old with a 30 year old face to me. I believe she is an actress, reliving her youth on stage. No doubt her shoes are pinching her feet and that is why she grips the curtain for balance. Her name, no doubt, is something like.....Eupasia Constance Frimp. Mm hm.
ReplyDeleteYou have observed the photo carefully Hilly. I wonder if she was really called Nancy as the scrawl in the bottom righthand corner says "Sincerely yours, Nancy". The shoes are definitely soft dancing shoes. In England after World War One, there were many dance schools and dancing shows, variety theatres etc.. This was happening in hard working towns and villages across the north of our country. My mother was part of this movement.
ReplyDelete