Old Photos

[Slim]

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.



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.

[Slim]

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, 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.

[Slim]

Taken on the same day in 1961 from the same vantage point, looking in the other direction (north). The Steetley Works.

[The Picnic Wasp]

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.

[Pudders]

Agreed, fantastic photos. Especially that second one, so much going on there!

[Slim]

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.



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.

[Nick]

Presumably had an embroidered starman on the back.

[Slim]

My grandparents on holiday in Tyrol, Austria. Taken in 1967.



Note the bottles of Beck's - a commonplace sight in Austria back then presumably, but not in the UK.

[Slim]

Grandad again (on the right) about 50 years earlier, with his comrades in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

[Pudders]

Cracking photo James - thrown by the fact your Grandfather's cap badge is not RAMC 

[Slim]

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.



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/

[Pudders]

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

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?

[Slim]

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.

[Pudders]

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

[Pudders]

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!).