Dog Days

This is my childhood companion, Kim, posing in a shopping basket in the early 1960s. He had a real basket to sleep in of course, as the two rather grainy pictures below show. Most of the time it would be stationed in the warmest spot in the kitchen. It was where he would retreat to when tired, bored, or had very occasionally fallen out of favour for some misdemeanour.





















The basket was easily transported in the car and would accompany the family on holiday, along with its owner. It got taken into the garden on sunny days, when the humans would sit on a picnic blanket or chair. Usually Kim would join the humans, as the blanket looked far more inviting.

The poet Elizabeth Barret Browning died on this day in 1861. She was a woman who was unwell for much of her life, and her faithful companion, a spaniel called Flush, is the subject of two of her poems. Flush spent much of his time on the couch with Elizabeth, unlike the tiny dog in this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt image, which comes to us courtesy of The Past on Glass on Flickr.

This little chap (or lady) belongs to the Mitchel. L. and that’s all we know; except that it was photographed by David Knights-Whittome, whose remarkable work is being cleaned, catalogued and researched by staff and volunteers of the Sutton Archive. He certainly had a way with animals, especially dogs. I wonder what made him photograph the Mitchel dog inside this basket, and why leave the brush and toy dog in the picture? It certainly makes for an interesting arrangement.

Elizabeth Barret Browning’s poem in praise of Flush, shows us that the love  and devotion he gave to to his sick mistress was returned in equal measure.

This dog only, waited on,

Knowing that when light is gone

Love remains for shining.

Mr and Mrs Foley Go Camping

Mr Foley and Mrs Foley of Sweetbriar Terrace, Waterford, camping in Tramore

Thursday July 11th 1918

The Foleys shut up shop and turned the ‘OPEN’ sign

to CLOSED, They packed their bags and filled the travel chest: 

Her novels, sketchbook, pens, his fishing rod and line,

Their walking shoes and sticks and Sunday Best;

Her dress, her lacy ‘smalls’ and Summer hat so fine,

His boater, suit and tie, his drawers and woollen vest.

Then last, the caged canary, dog and flowers, were stowed,

The caravan was ready for the open road.

© Marilyn Brindley 2017

The above charming photograph is our prompt image for this week’s Sepia Saturday challenge, and comes to us courtesy of The National Library of Ireland via flickr Commons. The poem is a flight of fancy; I’ve no idea whether the Foleys (if the lady is indeed Mrs Foley, there is a question mark on the caption of the post in flickr) had a trade. Nor do I really believe that the caravan was towed, complete with flower pots,  from Sweetbriar Terrace to Tramore. 

 I haven’t any similar bucolic scenes in my family albums, but we recently acquired a photo of my husbands’ grandparents taken two years later. They too are on holiday, in Colwyn Bay, in August 1920 and are similarly attired. Alice wears her best dress and a style of Summer hat which matches Mrs Foley's, whilst George too wears a smart three-piece suit, just as Mr Foley does. Last week we saw him in a bowler and a trilby, but here he favours his golfing cap. Those were the days when people really did dress up on holiday.


And the shy teenager on the right is my own grandmother in 1916, wearing her Summer hat at a similar jaunty angle to Mrs Foley's.

Join us this week on the Sepia Saturday caravan, to see how other contributors were inspired by the prompt image.

Water Sparingly

A boy and a watering can, that was our prompt image for this week’s Sepia Saturday challenge.

In response I came up with this snap of my late sister-in-law Gill, giving my son an impromptu shower in her garden in 1990. I don’t think he expected the water to be so cold, judging by the way he is sucking in his chest. I wonder if Gill had come across something like this illustration, which I found in the small Priory Museum in great Malvern a few years ago. See my 2012 post Taking the Waters.

I found the picture below online* and it appears that the kindly zoo keeper is giving the penguins a shower, not actually watering them to enhance their growth.

Similarly, at our own agricultural museum, El Patio, here in Lanzarote, I snapped this moment where it appears that the duck is about to be watered. In reality I think the attendant is simply waiting patiently for the duck to pass through the gate so that she can continue with her chores.

See what others have come up with in response to our prompt by joining us over at Sepia Saturday.

* Although this image appears in numerous sites on the web I have been unable to identify its source or a credit for the photographer. Happy to do so if someone knows.

The Bowler

The above photograph is one of several similar images which were from my husband’s grandfather, George. He is the gentleman seated front row on the right. The occasion was the official opening of the Bowling Green* on 18th April 1930. It was Good Friday when tradition dictated that the bowling season would be officially opened by a local dignitary or club member being invited to bowl a jack and three woods. I have no idea what that means as I am not a bowls aficionado, but clearly it was deemed an honour to do so, and was never offered to the same person twice.

What we have discovered by scanning across the faces of the other members, is that my father-in-law is also in the picture. At that time he was a young man of twenty-two and probably already courting my mother-in-law. He is third from the left.

I also discovered him on the 1934 photo above, taken again on Good Friday, 30th March. He is the scarf-wearing chap, smiling away three rows from the front and three in from the left. He was already a married man by then and was standing a little closer to his father-in-law, who is peering over the head of the bowler-hatted gentleman in front of him.

Which brings me to another bowler altogether, the bowler hat, of which there are several examples here. It has nothing to do with bowling and owes its name to its designers, Thomas and William Bowler of London.

In the few pictures we have of George wearing a hat it is is usually of the flat, golfing type or a trilby. However, those with a long memory will know that he carried off the wearing of a bowler with aplomb, at the age of about fourteen, around the turn of the last century. He featured in a piece I wrote about his sister called The Eyes of Margaret, where you can read more about George.

Our prompt image this week has a bowler-hatted gentleman making, or packing, boxes in a yard. I decided to 'think outside the box’ and bowl you over with my play on words. I hope you are duly impressed. For more impressive posts join the bowling club that is Sepia Saturday and see what other contributors have come up with.

* We think it may be Ashton-under-Lyne.

Familiar Tree

The Major Oak *

Yes, a familiar tree, not a family tree, which is what my genealogist blogger friends (and many fellow Sepians) would recognise.The above mighty oak is one which I have known since childhood. It is known as The Major Oak and my family and I would enjoy visits to the ancient woodland where it grows in Nottinghamshire. On one occasion, c1964, we took my friend along and my Dad snapped us inside a much smaller but still impressive tree.

I wrote about this particular tree in Going Back to My Roots in 2011:

"Here I am aged about ten years, with my childhood friend, Pearl, on a visit to Edwinstowe to see 'The Major Oak'. I was born in Nottingham and many of our family outings in the 60s would be to Sherwood Forest, legendary home of the outlaw Robin Hood. The forest is home to hundreds of ancient oaks like the one above, but of course the Major Oak was the most famous. It is over 800 years old and has a history all of its own. I was brought up on stories of the oak being the hiding place or larder of Robin and his Merry Men, and I never failed to feel excitement and wonder whenever we visited. Just walking into the wood and getting that earthy tang of trees, fern, bracken, fungi and moss was enough to lift the spirits."

In 2014 The tree was voted England’s Tree of the Year; here is a link to the Guardian Newspaper article about it.

A few years ago I 'became the tree' in my imagination for a creative writing exercise, where I imagined my special relationship with the legendary Robin Hood. Here is the piece I wrote. I hope you enjoy it.

They have made me part of his legend. I stand in the heart of Sherwood Forest, my massive girth dwarfing my younger brothers. My twisted branches, home now only to woodland creatures, were once his childhood hiding place. Then the forest was deep and dark and not a place to venture lightly, but he was always fearless, climbing to my uppermost branch, to survey the land. A skinny lad, fleet of foot, quick-witted, he always had a gaggle of followers, hanging on his word and aping his actions. Later, when he had fallen foul of the law and with a price upon his head, he would whisper his secrets and fears to me. Once he brought a lovely young woman by the hand, and laughingly drew her into my hollow trunk, and there.....but no, I will not tell.

I would watch them as they sat on my gnarled roots. The scraggy boy now grown tall and muscular, with a commanding presence, his playmates replaced by trusted and devoted men. They would practise their archery in the nearby clearing, eat, drink, laugh and sing together, the young woman watching with adoring eyes. 

It was not all merry, there were dark days too; violence, bloodshed and eventually, death. Centuries have passed and men have woven stories about his deeds until no-one can be certain of the truth anymore. I know, but I will never tell; I have sworn to keep his secrets for eternity.

Join us at Sepia Saturday this week, where our prompt picture is a wonderful old image of the tree which stood at the centre of England in Leamington.**

*Paul Buckingham [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
** Shared by Cornell University Library on Flickr Commons