Waiting

I just want to unpack this week's Sepia Saturday suitcase (which features an advert for the Pacific Trunk Company) lay it out and look at all the objects they imagined a male traveller would carry.  For other Sepian adventures that may, or may not, involve suitcases see here.  I knew I would have photos of suitcases. In those times before tablets and mobiles there were always moments to fill when waiting for a train so why not take a photograph.

This Friday is a special day for me and I am featuring the reason, which is my mother, whose birthday was the 31st January.  I also always associate her birthday with change, the lengthening of days becoming noticeable and the promise of the year ahead.   To return to the photograph, taken at a different time of year, October 1958.  I would be about 9 and it looks as though my growing spurt is on the way to overtaking my mothers hight of 5 ft. She was an accomplished in sewing so the coat is one of her creations, as is the hat.  She would continue to knit hats, both when she ran a wool shop and towards the end of her life when she specialised in brushed woollen ones, always admired.  The photo shows us packed and waiting at Ulverston station on the way to Preston.   The journey would have been to visit my Auntie Phyl who lived there for a short while.  I think that was also the time I fell off the dining room chair, (yes I was swinging back on it) and put my teeth through under my bottom lip. I was in good hands though because my Aunt was a nurse and like my mother very good at needlework although I hasten to add not on me, there was more blood than injury, although  enough that I was given Dettol antiseptic mouthwashes for the duration of the stay, and afterwards.  I still remember the pungent smell.      

Sarah (Sadie) Pugh

As a child holidays were always spent visiting relations, usually my mothers sisters, or on a weekly run-around rail ticket.  When my parents became more affluent then their holiday of choice was to go walking.  Here she is waiting at the outside of the station of the previous photograph, Ulverston .  Is it me or do those plants in the background look remarkably like cabbages?  The suitcase may have changed but the strap on one of them has a familiar look to the first photo, belts and braces packing. My farther has filled the backs of this set of photographs with information, it was one of their favourite holidays.  This one says "Saturday June 30th 1984. After the holiday at Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight. I wait with the bags while Sadie goes to the phone (for a taxi) at Station Corner".  Is this before, or after, she has charged off to the phone box? She only had one pace, fast, even into her eighties she was going the same speed.  She also always liked to be busy so the walk up the hill to the phone box would fill in some of that pesky waiting time.                

Journeys

An entry to Sepia Saturday

Using old images as prompts for new reflections

My unexpected discovery in book was a purchase in a second hand book shop.  The book had a very small printed last name on the frontispiece, Quemby,

and that same small writing appeared on the back of the two photographs left inside. No need to guess where we are in the world here with pyramid looming in the background. I love the white walled tyres of the car, not to mention those two toned shoes.  On the reverse of the card it says - "Welcome", Vi, Jean, Siabhra, Driver. There is even a date 2.3.51 but the era might have been guessed from the immaculate white gloved hands, although Vi is more free-wheeling.  I'm not sure if our party is arriving or departing but here they are on the ultimate tourist experience-

We are treated  to camels and the sphinx in the background plus an extra member of the party. The driver must be waiting by the car as only the guide appears on a donkey, the photo says on the back "L to R Cliff, Vi, Jean, Siabhra - 'Welcome' 2.3.51"  I wonder if Cliff is the photographer of the first photo and the owner of the book or is there another person behind the camera. I'll never know, at least I can make an educated guess from the name Siabhra that she may be Irish. These photographs were perfectly placed in a book as I found them in next to a map

of  Laurens van der Post's journey down Africa by plane (and that is where they remain).  He disliked this mode of transport, no wonder, he'd set off from what was then called Heath Row Aerodrome, landing at different refuelling points, to eventually arrive at Chileka aerodrome 7,000 miles and 72 hours later and says he was "pleased to have done flying for some months at least".  The book, 'Venture into the Interior', was published in 1952, one year after our unknown travellers appear in the photographs.  I wonder if they were planning another trip?  I don't think any side of my family had travelled this far at this time, unless they were in the uniform of the navy or the army.

Which is how the publisher shows Lauren Van der Post who had left England in 1940 as a soldier behind enemy lines in Abyssinia, then the western desert to Syria and the Transjordan frontier, ultimately through the Dutch East Indies where he walked into a Japanese trap and spent several years in a prisoner of war camp. I remember picking up this "Venture to the Interior" (his first travel book) in the shop because I'd read his novel "Flamingo Feather" (first published in 1955) which had remained lodged in my head.  Rationing was still in place when Van der Post journeyed from England in May 1949, on instruction from the government, to Nyasaland (modern day Malawi) to look at two tracks of land that had not been accurately mapped. One was a rugged mountain mass and the other a large plateau.  The reason was the British government was worried about production of food and Van der Post was going to have a close look at the area on foot.  He travelled light and only took a few clothes and sealing wax.  Why sealing wax? Because it was the only thing he thought he would not be able to buy in Africa.  I haven't used sealing wax for about 45 years but remember using it to seal bags going to the Ministry of Defence, there is something very satisfying about dripping wax, but Van der Post was going to use it to seal samples he hoped to collect in Nyasaland.