My brother has been going through old photos from my mum's house and I've just retouched and enhanced this one. This was taken on the occasion of my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary in 1970 at their home in Hartlepool. This scene consists of my grandparents, their children, their childrens' spouses, and their grandchildren - minus my brother who I think is behind the camera.
That's me on the bottom left. Only the persons in the front row, and my mum (immediately behind me) are still alive. To my left at the front are my cousin Martin, my brother Eric and my cousin Fergus.
(https://i.ibb.co/0V4TMcK/goldenwedding.jpg)
Sorry to say that my cousins' family has been touched by tragedy to an unusual degree. My Aunt Alwyn, pictured on the right, succumbed to cancer this same year, in her mid 40s. Six years later her husband Gordon, top left here, suffered a fatal heart attack in his early 50s. And their daughter Katherine, standing between Gordon and my dad at the back, died in January 2016. I think she would have been 59.
Interesting tv placement!
I only recall this event very vaguely, but I'm sure the settee was repositioned for the photo. It usually faced the wall on the left.
Unfortunately my photo stash domain name (truth.justdied.com) doesn't work for some people - I think BT put it on a blacklist for spam, mistakenly of course, some time ago. I believe someone falsely reported it maliciously. I must start using a different domain name for that.
Just changed the image in the top post to a free photo hosting service (I usually just use my own web server) - let me know if it's working now? Thanks!
Such a lovely picture. I've taken to looking at old pictures too...makes me a little sad. Things just seemed better back in the 70s/80s/90s, even though they probably weren't..
If I'd not taken them all back up to my dad's I could have entertained you with pictures from his family albums, although for some reason I don't seem to appear in many of them...
It was on of my dad's regrets that after his parents died, his elder brother cleared out the house and burned lots of old photos and other things of interest - like his dad's accounts of how best to kill chickens :)
Just done this one as well, taken the same day of course. My brother Bill (on the left) took the first one; I think my dad would have taken this.
(https://i.ibb.co/VgMnkwm/cousins.jpg)
Bill is 10 years older than me. He would have been 20 when this was taken. Around this time he was fond of Zeppelin, Sabbath and especially Fleetwood Mac and Cream, so I was exposed to a lot of music that I wouldn't otherwise have heard at a young age.
Here's one I found last night, probably taken a couple of years earlier - the house where I was brought up in Hartlepool. I lived there between 1960 and 1989 and it still belongs to my Mum, although she's in a care home now. It will be sold this year, hopefully. I was last there in October.
(https://i.ibb.co/wQf303Q/linden-gr.jpg)
One of the art-deco curved window panes at the front got cracked and couldn't be replaced, so new frames went in with flat panes some time in the '70s. Great shame.
The blue car was our Vauxhall Victor estate. My abiding memory of it is that it was like an oven on holidays in Spain. After it had been left in the sun, you had to put towels on the plastic seats to stop them burning your legs!
It had a bench front seat so I could sit between my mum and dad sometimes, though usually they made me sit in the back.
Long old drive to Spain from the NE.
Beast of a car. Looked like it probably went around corners well.......... ;D
Quote from: Nick on May 11, 2022, 03:32:14 PMLong old drive to Spain from the NE.
Yes, down the A1 to Southampton then a car ferry. In the '70s they took a caravan for a few years.
But I loved the road trip down through France, it was quite the adventure. The back of the car would be absolutely crammed full of stuff behind the back seat so that we could barely see over it.
Quote from: Slim on May 11, 2022, 09:12:17 PMBut I loved the road trip down through France, it was quite the adventure. The back of the car would be absolutely crammed full of stuff behind the back seat so that we could barely see over it.
Like us when we used to go camping in Europe, the back seat was covered in sleeping bags and air beds, then three kids on top. By the time I was a teenager I used to be bent double to get in. Three days there, three days back...
Found an old photo among my Mum's stuff in October, so I made an updated version. Taken round the back of the house in Hartlepool.
(https://i.ibb.co/tJ2Nc3z/21-22lg.jpg)
It's the summer of 1972 and here I am in the Hotel Canada Palace in Calafell, playing cards with two French girls (one out of shot on the left) and a young man from Newcastle.
Even though it's August and I'm in Spain, I note that I'm wearing a vest under my t-shirt.
The tattoos on my left arm are not real. They are transfers that came free with the local Spanish lollipops (Chupa Chups).
This is the only photo I know of in which I'm wearing my Timex diver's watch. I loved that watch and wore it 24/7, which is the reason that my left wrist is slimmer than the right one. It had an adjustable countdown bezel, very handy for exams.
(https://i.ibb.co/YRjsVY3/calafell-cards.jpg)
Quote from: Slim on May 11, 2022, 02:36:35 PMHere's one I found last night, probably taken a couple of years earlier - the house where I was brought up in Hartlepool. I lived there between 1960 and 1989 and it still belongs to my Mum, although she's in a care home now. It will be sold this year, hopefully. I was last there in October.
(https://i.ibb.co/wQf303Q/linden-gr.jpg)
One of the art-deco curved window panes at the front got cracked and couldn't be replaced, so new frames went in with flat panes some time in the '70s. Great shame.
Tomorrow this place will leave our family and someone else will own it.
I thought about it just now because it occurred to me that the sun would just be going down in Hartlepool, and I thought of the dozens of late summer evenings when I played in the back garden as a child before coming in to watch
The Avengers, or
Department S, or
The Man From Uncle. If I started to write about my memories of this place, from Christmas mornings, to learning to ride a bike in the garden, to tinkering with our first home computer on the living room table, I could go on for hours.
The house has been empty for months - and yet it's strange to think of the evening light dimming in the back garden for the very last time until someone else calls it home, after these six decades or so. I wish I was there to see that. I never will be again.
But who knows - perhaps a new family will get 60-odd years of memories out of it, as well. You never know.
I spent an hour going through old slides again yesterday and found this gem. My dad was the manager of the Drawing Office at Steetley Magnesite (http://betweenthewheels.net/SteetleyMagnesite), a company that refined magnesia from sea water. Or something.
The Steetley chimney was a familiar Hartlepool landmark and my dad once told me that he went up it while it was being built, in 1961. It turns out that he took a couple of pics while he was up there.
Steetley closed, having changed hands a couple of times, about twenty years ago. The whole site has been demolished now to make way for housing and the chimney came down in 2012.
I worked there myself in 1980. I had a summer job as a storeman for a few weeks.
On the left of the pic, to the left of the brickie's elbow is the Spion Kop cemetery. It's still there, although disused. The little church you can see on the right has gone, though.
(https://i.ibb.co/b5T9kvW/img220820-2005.jpg)
Taken on the same day in 1961 from the same vantage point, looking in the other direction (north). The Steetley Works.
(https://i.ibb.co//YyfWM9C//img220820-2004.jpg)
Good Lord! What incredible photographs. Your father must have had nerves of steel to be perched up there even for a quick visit. I guess health and safety wasn't at the forefront of the managements' thinking then.
Agreed, fantastic photos. Especially that second one, so much going on there!
Taken in early September 1987 by my girlfriend at the time and not a great quality image, but: here I am atop the World Trade Centre. Glad I wasn't standing there 14 years later.
(https://i.ibb.co/nfRpmCx/wtc87.jpg)
I still use that camera bag, I'd just got it when this was taken. Actually I only threw out the shirt about ten years ago. The stonewashed denim jacket is long gone.
Presumably had an embroidered starman on the back.
My grandparents on holiday in Tyrol, Austria. Taken in 1967.
(https://i.ibb.co/gPRYx6S/n-g002.jpg)
Note the bottles of Beck's - a commonplace sight in Austria back then presumably, but not in the UK.
Grandad again (on the right) about 50 years earlier, with his comrades in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
(https://i.ibb.co/svSJcjf/ww1-001.jpg)
Cracking photo James - thrown by the fact your Grandfather's cap badge is not RAMC ;)
Really .. that's curious. For sure he was a medic, possibly a stretcher bearer. Appreciate the comment Neil as I'd love to see if I can find out a bit more. Do you know what the cap badge is?
The image in this post is from a postcard - written on the back is "Best love to all Jim xxx 5-10-17". Grandad is on the left. Same cap I think.
But it must have been taken in England - the small print on the card says "Thirlwell & Co, Photographers. Stockton, Middlesboro, West Hartlepool, Newcastle, Darlington & Bishop Auckland"
Actually it's debatable whether it's a 14 or a 17.
(https://i.ibb.co/q7qC6k1/ww1-002.jpg)
I found this site which has some other portrait photos by Thirlwell, you can see the same backdrop curtain in one of them
https://gohomeonapostcard.wordpress.com/fashion-portraits/fashion-portraits-dated-3/
My first thought was Devonshire Regt, but there is a possible clue in the badge on his right arm which, I think is a Divisional insignia. The only one I can find that matches is that is for the 42nd (East Lancashire) Infantry Division.
See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisional_insignia_of_the_British_Army (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisional_insignia_of_the_British_Army)
Which then leads me to think it may be an Army Service Corps Badge, the ASC having units attached to that division. He's holding a riding crop as well, which would fit with transport duties etc?
Found this to illustrate the type of cap badge: https://www.brittonsbadges.co.uk/en-GB/wwi-cap-badges/army-service-corps-cap-badge/prod_12821#.Y5e86HanxPY
Not entirely sure though...what was his full name?
Brilliant Neil, thanks very much. The cap badge definitely looks right, as does the divisional insignia on his arm. What he'd be doing in that particular part of the army though I have no idea, as he was from a market town in County Durham. He was James Gibbon, no middle name.
As you may have noticed, his mate - no idea who he is - is wearing a Durham Light Infantry cap badge.
I found this:
http://ramc-ww1.com/chain_of_evacuation.html
"The team, which made up a Cavalry Field Ambulance, consisted of 6 Officers and 70 O/Rs RAMC working alongside 42 O/R's from the Army Service Corps. Within an Infantry Field Ambulance, the team was 10 Officers and 182 O/R's RAMC working alongside 49 O/Rs ASC etc. A Field Ambulance composed of a Headquarters Company [A coy] which formed the MDS, and two companies [B & C Coy`s] which deployed forward to form the two ADS`s. Each of these companies were further sub-divided into two parts namely the `Tent division` who were the medical staff and formed the treatment area, and the `bearer` sub-division who were the stretcher-bearers collecting the casualties from the RAPs, and carrying them back to the 'tent division'"
So I think that must be right.
Ah yes, of course, pretty much the same strength for a field ambulance as in WW2 when my father was in HQ Company. Lorries rather than horse drawn transport by then though! I'll have a closer look at military records - when I briefly scanned the records last night there were several James Gibbons (I took an educated punt on Jim's surname). I'll see if I can narrow it down a bit :)
I may have found him...when I prioritised the search for James Gibbon, ASC (rather than other units or Gibbons/Gibbins) there was only one hit. Below is an image of this mans Medal Index Card. Note that he was originally in the RAMC, which would fit your memories of his service. Then a move to the ASC (RASC). This could have been the same field ambulance of course.
I'll stick a couple of other docs up that this card refers to, the Medal Rolls, one for the 1914-15 Star the other for the British War Medal/Victory Medal and you'll see a few more positive details there...
ASC men can be a right pain to research and trace and, with no service record surviving as far as I can see, it's hard to accurately track his whereabouts (but not impossible!).
(https://i.ibb.co/t47rg47/30850-A000597-03112.jpg)
1914-15 Star
(https://i.ibb.co/s5tNHnM/41804-636897-11432-00304.jpg)
Victory and British War Medal. Not come across the acronym 'N.D.T.' before. Searches come up with Non Destructive Testing, might be relevant for his later service and yet another service number! That's my lot for the night but will dig again later in the week :)
(https://i.ibb.co/djmhkrh/41629-626640-11860-00047.jpg)
Wow thanks Neil, fascinating stuff! Really appreciate it.
Found another few photos of our house from a long, long time ago. For a few years after the war the house was owned by my mum's parents. They sold it when they went to live in Bishop Auckland in the early '50s, and my own parents bought it back when it came on the market again in 1961.
This is my Aunt Kay pictured with her (and my mum's) dad outside the house in 1950. The print is a bit torn and knackered but I managed to clean it up a bit.
(https://i.ibb.co/PYSqn29/lg-003.jpg)
Kay died in 2002, lung cancer. Her dad, my maternal grandfather, died a few years after this was taken, before I was born.
This one was taken in (at a guess) 1972. The porch has now been assimilated into the house with a new front door and my brother's Morris Traveller is parked outside. There's a new telegraph pole. And TV aerials.
The thing I remember about the front door is that I could unlock it it by snaking my left arm through the letterbox and turning the latch built into the door knob on the inside. My mum hated that. But it was very handy. I was the only person in our household able to do this.
(https://i.ibb.co/vP4FcyG/lg-002.jpg)
My room (or my half of the room, it was subdivided into two halves by a large wardrobe) at Woodlands, the student house I shared with about 20 other students at the end of 1979. The house was run by Huddersfield Poly as a hall of residence for first year students. I would have taken this pic with my old Practika SLR.
My roommate was a young man named Chris Peart. Chris left after the first term and I was relocated to another room at the front of the house. This one was right at the top of the house, and the window on the right in the pic overlooked the back garden.
Looks like I've just eaten a tin of hot dogs, with a fork.
The bed was really rickety and uncomfortable. I think the book on top of it is The Problems of Philosophy, if so I still have it somewhere.
(https://i.ibb.co/smj9B52/woodlands-room.jpg)
Pack of Gauloises, choice of champions no doubt. When I smoked I tried the tobacco (tobacco is still very popular over here), rolling my own smokes. Mostly to ensure no one bummed off of me, no one liked the taste.
Is that a stereo set in back on the nightstand?
I have no doubt that you made the necessary interrogations about Chris's surname. I had never looked up the origins of the name until tonight. I should have realised that it's Scottish as it sounds it, although I don't recall any dealings with any Pearts myself. This room scene brings back memories for me too. When i was in a long term relationship many years ago, I was very surprised to learn how student bedsits looked and functioned. I always lived in a very reserved, comfortable household. The wildness and random carefree lifestyle of several young women living under the same roof was a complete revelation to me. I enjoyed every moment in that squalid, cold, less that watertight multiple occupancy top floor. I wish I was going back there tomorrow. Alcohol, music, junk food, laughter and even better things.
Quote from: Thenop on January 13, 2024, 06:29:19 PMPack of Gauloises, choice of champions no doubt. When I smoked I tried the tobacco (tobacco is still very popular over here), rolling my own smokes. Mostly to ensure no one bummed off of me, no one liked the taste.
Is that a stereo set in back on the nightstand?
Yes, it's my radio cassette player. It had been an 18th birthday present about 14 months before this photo was taken, and it's only a slight exaggeration to say that my life revolved around it around the time. It made pretty good stereo recordings with a decent cassette tape and I captured loads of music and interviews from radio rock shows. I still have some of them.
Chris and I used to socialise a lot in the first term - we'd go to a pub most evenings, or the student union bar where the beer was something like 35p a pint. But after he left I was made to share with another student in the house, a lad from Preston called Simon. He was perfectly pleasant, but I never bonded with him. He spent most of his time with his girlfriend, a plump girl in the same house who ruled him like a stern headmistress. He seemed to like that. The other folks already had their friendship groups, so I withdrew and mostly spent evenings on my own in the room I shared with Simon. He was out nearly all the time so it was like having a room to myself. And I'd listen to Radio One for hours on that radio cassette, Mike Read then John Peel.
Actually, with hilarious timing, I met my first "proper" girlfriend the first time I went home to Hartlepool for the weekend. And after that I spent every weekend in Hartlepool.
It was a weird time actually. But it's nice to remember, and write about these long-distant times. I might start a memoir thread.
Fortunately I stopped smoking about a year after this photo was taken. But I did enjoy my Gauloises Longues, I must admit. I used to smoke Gitanes, as well.
I'm reading Geddy's memoir quite slowly. For some reason I want to draw the process out longer than I would with any other autobiography. It made me think about what my memoir might be like. I would probably be enjoyable and also cathartic to do, but that would be the only benefit as who else would wish to read it? I probably wouldn't allow that in any case as there would be a lot of wounds opened and many things I have never disclosed to anyone due to family loyalties. Maybe it would reduce the frequency of troublesome dreams. Thinking of a title would be interesting. It would need to be something to attract a Graham Norton invitation which I would respectfully decline.
Maybe the way I process the world is different from other people but I do feel a need to write about certain chapters in my life. Yes, as a sort of catharsis but also to make sense of them. Perhaps so that there's some sort of official souvenir, hilarous as that might sound.
For a long time I intended to write a memoir about my seven years in London. Then I realised that I just don't have the attention span to do that, so I had the idea instead just to pick aspects of it - a particular job, a particular girlfriend (I had an eye-wateringly bonkers one, I will definitely write about that episode one day) - and do it in separate chunks.
Of course it would be lovely to be famous, and to have thousands of readers. But even if four people read what I were to write on my blog, or on a message board somewhere, it would still be worth doing. Just to get it out.
I have written quite some short stories, all fiction. And all of them have elements of "me" in them. I think most writers do that. Some are quite obvious, others more subtle.
And easy example is a story that pivots around our old front door, it was orange, had threaded glass in it and the letterbox was in the middle. I once kicked in the lower window when my mother wouldn't answer the door, I must have been 7, my father had just died and it turns out she was at the upstairs neighbours. But of course, there are many more events that involved our front door, being the entrance to our home. That kind of how I write about me, not directly, I don't like non-fiction, but creating stories round what I know. It's and endless source of inspiration. Have no desire to be famous for it, although a fair number of people have read my stories and one got published. All in Dutch of course..
Sorry to hijack your photo thread Slim!
Not at all, I welcome the conversation. About two years ago I did write a sort of autobiographical short story. It described a dream that didn't actually happen, but it was based on real people and events. I think I'll start a thread for self-authored content in the Literature section.
You have an excellent way with words and a dry sense of humour, Slim/James. Obviously, ridiculously intelligent too. It seems you've led quite an interesting life. I'd read it.
That's too kind, thanks Hass.