Once again we are diving into the photographic memories of my Grandparents. This time it is my father's side of the family and the timing is ripe for some family photos of Dad as a baby and little boy. He was born Allan Burke in 1932 and was joined by a brother, Geoffrey, the following year.
The vast majority of photographs in the album are just 8 x 6 cm (3 x 2.25 inches). Exposures are all over the place, cameras in those days did not work out the correct exposure for you, you had to buy a seperate piece of equipment to do that and then set the camera manually. If indeed the camera gave you a choice... Some are dark, some are too light, some look as though they were taken during a thick fog. In all cases I've cleaned them up as best I can and for consistency have converted all to the same shade of sepia.
Let's open the pages to a period between the two World Wars, when the family transport was my Grandad's motor bike and sidecar. He was John Burke also - I was named after him. His wife, my Grandma was Annie.
At the start of the album are a few photos from 1926. From left to right they are: Percy Alston, the husband of Annie's sister, my Great-Auntie Elsie; then there is Annie; Annie's and Elsie's aunt, my Great-Gt-Auntie Florrie; an unknown child who is perhaps destined to remain a mystery now I imagine; Great-Auntie Elsie; and finally my Grandad, John, often known as Johnny Burke.
Here Percy has taken over the camera from the unknown gent next to the end. Perhaps Auntie Florrie's boyfriend - she never married but did have a child, a girl out of wedlock, causing a bit of a kerfuffle I should imagine at the time. I imagine the boy is the chap's son. Family tradition has it that he (the chap not the son... well both of them I suppose, actually) vanished out of Florrie's life. We don't know his name or the reason for his leaving, it's possible he was already married I suppose.
The two sisters and their boyfriends, later husbands, obviously got on well together at the time and went on many outings and holidays together. Love those plus fours, Grandad!
Ok, so now we move from the 1920s into the 1930s, starting in July 1932. Annie is holding her three-month-old son Allan - my Daddy to be... Three children had been born before him, all either stillborn or who died after just a few days of life.
Allan with his father, John. I'm tempted to think of the day being that of his Christening, although the album does not give any such information.
The following year Allan gained a brother, Geoffrey.
They are photographed outside the house on Church Street, Rochdale. Just a short way down the street was Rochdale Gas Works, with it's huge circles of girders holding the gas storage containers. During my own childhood, although my grandparents had since moved, the street was still home to my Great-Grandma, Maggie Brearley and her sister Auntie Florrie. My great-grandma was always "Grandma Brearley", I don't think I even knew her first name until these albums emerged following Uncle Geoff's passing a few years ago. For some unknown reason he always claimed that there were no old family photographs existing.
A few months later in 1933, Allan and Geoff are playing with what I hope are pebbles rather than eggs, again outside of the house in the fresh air.
Geoff had dark red hair against my Dad's blonde. Here he's playing with a model aircraft. I remember during my own childhood that my dad and uncle were keen builders of balsa wood aeroplanes with tissue fabric and engines that either flew the planes in circles on a set of control lines or that just flew off until the fuel (or a twisted rubber band) ran out.
Family picnic in the park. It looks as though Geoff is not enjoying himself to the full here...
August 1934. Outside the house again. There was very little traffic to worry about in the 1930s and most deliveries would still be carried out on horse-drawn carts or by bicycle. Church Street had a quite steep gradient. I remember Dad telling me once how he used to go sledging down the snow-covered cobbles in winter and how they would always come a cropper because of one woman who insisted on throwing her hot ashes from the fire out into the road to melt the snow in front of her house!
Sitting on the doorstep. Talking of coming a cropper it looks like Geoff has got a bandage and plaster wrapped round his knee. No being soft in those days. Cut knees were cleaned with water and carbolic soap then purple iodine applied which stung enough to make you forget how you came by the injury in the first place...
On the swings at the local park. Geoff is making a bid for freedom whilst Allan is looking very studious about something - or perhaps just wanting his Dad to stop taking photos and give him a push...!
And we come to the end of this article - but not of the photo album - with a view of the boys on the beach at Blackpool, whose South Pier with its distinctive gap under the decking before a row of criss-crossed ironwork gives away the location. The date is given as July 1934, the album has a few years to go yet.
Very interesting read and photos John
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