This page contains links to family photographs — both sides of the family — from Dad's return to England in 1931 to my parents' marriage in 1942.
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This is Uncle Tommy's grave. |
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Assuming (which I am not certain) that the child here is Noel, these two pictures of Dad are from the early 1930s. |
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(See previous item.) |
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This is Hawthorn Villa, Oakengates, where Dad's parents lived in the 1930s, and where Noel grew up. |
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This picture and the following four show my mother as a young woman in the 1930s. I have tried to put them in chronological order. Of this first one, I remember her telling me "I was just eighteen," so this is 1930. |
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This picture and the next one show Mum in her nurse's uniform. |
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(See previous item.) |
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Mum, no date. I'd guess early or middle 1930s. |
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Same as previous. |
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This picture and the following two come from a group (the others now badly deteriorated) which Aunt Muriel, when I showed them to her, could identify only as "Tess with some feller." Apparently my mother had an active social life. This first one may actually be Jack Morgan, whom mother loved dearly, but who suddenly died on her. (Rheumatic fever, I think it was.) |
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The "feller" in this picture and the next seem to be the same. |
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It's possible this is the trip I remember Mum reminiscing about once. "A feller took me to Blackpool for the weekend. When I got to the railway station, though, his mother was there too. She'd decided to come along as a chaperone." Perhaps the mother is taking these pictures, I don't know. |
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This is my mother with her sister Laura (married name Jones) at "Sunnyside," Laura's Hednesford cottage. Early 1930s, perhaps even late 1920s. |
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Auntie Gladys (née Blewitt) was the wife of Uncle Bill, my mother's oldest brother. This is Gladys and Mum at the beach. |
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Here is Mum with Auntie Gladys on the beach again. The little girl in the third deckchair is Joyce Brevitt, daughter of Gladys's sister (who I think was also named Joyce, or possibly Elsie). The similarity of names, Blewitt-Brevitt, seems to be just a coincidence. |
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Gladys (on the left, I'm pretty sure) with her sister Joyce (or Elsie) and young Douglas Knowles, Bill & Gladys's only child. The little girl is presumably Joyce Jr. |
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This is Mum (on the right) with Auntie Gladys (center) and a person I don't know, in the garden of Bill's house at 342 Cannock Road in Wolverhampton. |
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Of her six sisters, I think Mum felt closest to Nell. Nell married a man named Teddy Buckley, and went to live in Yorkshire. This is Nell and Teddy. |
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My mother with Aunt Nell and the family dog. |
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Mum with Teddy Buckley (and the dog). |
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Mum with Aunt Nell. |
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This picture, much deteriorated, was taken at the farm Teddy Buckley's family owned near Wakefield in Yorkshire. The little girl is Beryl, Nell and Teddy's only child, born 1926. |
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Beryl Buckley again. |
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Mum dancing with Auntie Win; early 1930s, perhaps late 1920s. |
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Auntie Win's wedding to Fred Baggott, mid-1930s. Left to right: Unknown, Auntie Mu, Fred, Win, Grandad. |
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Uncle Jack and Auntie Gwen in 1935. |
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Auntie Mu, middle or late 1930s. |
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Grandma Knowles, late 1930s or early 1940s (I'm guessing). |
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Dad, sometime (I'm guessing) in the late 1930s or early 1940s. |
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Sometime in 1940 (probably), Dad was visited by two of his old mates from New Zealand, who had joined the NZ armed forces and been sent to England. |
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This, according to the reverse side (see next item) is Pte. David Seaton of Otago, NZ. He died a
hero's death May 25, 1941 in the battle of Crete the following year, as narrated in
the official record of the campaign.
When [his platoon] did find themselves forced to charge up a narrow street, a machine gun held up the attack for a minute or two until Private David Seaton broke the spell by striding forward firing his Bren gun from the hip. While he kept up steady bursts, others edged round to a flank and knocked out the machine gun with grenades. Seaton was killed but the attack surged on again. |
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Reverse of the previous photograph. |
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This is a Private J.G. Richardson. Like Pte. Seaton, he was with D Company of the 23rd Battalion and so presumably went to Greece with the rest of the 23rd. Whether he survived Greece and went to Crete with Pte. Seaton, and if so, whether he survived Crete, I do not know. These were heroes all. Just read that account of the fighting I've linked to up above. |
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Reverse of the previous photograph. |
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Samson Blewitt, a great character around Cannock in the early twentieth century. Blewitt was a farmer, a landlord, and a businessman. One of his eight children, Gladys, married my Uncle Bill. He owned a pub, the Hatherton Arms in Blewitt Street, and used to pay his employees there. There is a pub/restaurant named after him to this day in Cannock, though I think at a different location. I am told he is in his seventies in this picture, even though he looks much younger. On a dead-reckoning basis that would put it in the early 1940s, but that might be wrong by a decade either way. |
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My parents on their honeymoon in Llandudno, north Wales, September or October 1942. |
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Mum in her wedding dress. This was actually taken some months after the wedding because the original wedding photographs were casualties of war. The photographer had to collect them from the developer and then return by train. There was an air raid and the train was stopped. Then either the train was bombed and the photos were destroyed, or everyone had to get off the train and the photos were lost in the confusion. Mum was in fact already pregnant with Judith when this picture was taken, so it must be early 1943. |