General Chat

Yes, I have had a very nice day, Sue. I thought my birthday was celebrated on Sunday, but I still had calls and visits to-day. Even had a text from South Africa from OH's niece - lovely surprise. I met her once, two years ago when she came with her hubby and two girls on a business trip - at Xmas, so we invited them to have Christmas Day with us. It was lovely to meet them and she has stayed in touch. I gave her a copy of what I had done of OH's family tree and she must have taken my birthday from that...A lovely surprise.

Only thing which I didn't appreciate to-day was a sewer blockage! Since everyone in this complex is absent during the day, I have been waiting for them to get home to see if they are affected too. I expect any time now, to have a knock on my door asking if mine is blocked too?

Good morning all,
I too love having the family photo's. I took charge of my parents collection a few years ago and sorted them out. They were just shoved in a large box. At least I was able to ask who the people were.

Poor OH had practically no family photo's, his mother died when he was ten and his father remarried a few years later. His father died in a car crash when he OH was twenty one, his stepmother waited all of six months before remarrying, then divorced, then remarried, then divorced. She just walked away from the family, taking everything with her. OH doesn't have one single thing which belonged to his father.

Also killed in the crash was his fathers sister,she never married, but had helped bring OH up after his mother died. She was a lovely lady, I met her a few times just before we married. In fact it was her money which gave us the deposit on our first house. It was only when I was doing the tree, that OH's sister suddenly remembered that she had a large bag of old photo's, stored in her loft, which had belonged to this aunt.Unfortunately most of them had no names on them.

Anyway, there was an old lady who was a cousin of his mothers a couple of times removed, or something complicated like that, but we had always sent her a letter and card at Xmas,she was the only one who we thought could put a name to all of the photo's,so we rang her up to arrange to see her. She was very pleased and keen to help, but wanted us to wait a few weeks so the worst of the winter weather was over. It was only a couple of hours drive, but she obviously thought it was akin to a trip to the north pole. Unfortunately,she then died, taking all the family knowledge with her.

So the moral of this tale is, go through your photo's and write the names on the back of them. Unless you are feeling bloody minded of course and want to annoy your descendants.

Hello, Linda. As I mentioned before I scrapbook many of the old photos. On the back of each page I generally write all the facts I have about each person in the photo - date of birth etc. - and a small family tree showing where they fit in. I write on all new photos including the person who took the photo because we don't usually think about who took the photo. I have a nice photo of my father with his mother and two brothers and two aunties. Who took the photo? Probably my grandfather or dad's sister.

Sue xx

Yes Colin. I was 7 then. I still remember it though. Red roofs and green trees - and clean sands on the beaches.
Fifty years later - coming in on a 747, it was Red roofs and Blue pools - and the beaches were littered.

Tec, what an incredible chat you had with Old Geezer on his "first time" thread. It's a small world.

Sue xx

I have so many photos of my mothers and OH has so many photos on both sides of his family and we do not know who they are. One lot are all in an album but mean very little which is quite sad really. My dad's family probably did not even have a camera. The only photo I had of my father when he was young was taken at school - my dad went to the school reunion when he was in his seventies and came home with a soft covered booklet with him and two of his sisters and two of his neices school photos were in it. Someone visited him when he was in his late eighties and took the book with them - I can only assume it was a relative but it really hacked me off. On the other hand I have a lovely photo of my mother's grandmother when she was young and my grand daughter is the spitting image of her - I have sent the two comparative photos all over the world I was so pleased with it and for this astonishing likeness to happen five generations later is really something.

Of course I believed you Berona (cough cough ahem) I see you on other threads and know you would not lie.

Yes Allan or should that be kimasabee - I had been singing that before we left - but it was - "A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way. And all for under a pound, you know ...

Colin when I gather my wits sori I mean my meagre facts about my Turnbulls I will e-mail them to you thanks.

Perse
xx

Sue, your idea of scrapbooking is a good one. I have never been good at writing on photos - but if I put them straight into an album - I would give them heading, and descriptions, and file them in order etc. (you can tell I was an 'office' girl). I have always had to be a detective and look at the clothes, hair-styles, etc. to be able to know when the photos were taken if I didn't put them straight into an album..

My mother was the opposite and wrote on the back of every photo. Also, she used to send her sister a copy and would write a whole story on the back of those - then they came back to her after her sister died and eventually on to me, making it so much easier for me with two lots of photos and the stories on them.

Hi Persey. When we visited my dear old Uncle in Leeds last year he handed me some photos still in frames and said I could have them. My brother was with him and we both felt we couldn't take them with us. My cousin said later he wouldn't have minded but we did - they belonged in Uncle's house. So we borrowed them and very gently had them copied and returned them in their frames and undamaged. My cousin said he considers them to be mine one day but I still feel funny about that. Somehow they belong in England not over here. Fanciful I'm sure but I can't help feeling that way.

Sue xx

Berona - in our local Target store they often have some really nice picture frames that look very old fashioned so I've framed some of the old ones. Every now and then I change the photos but I have my favourites including a great one of OH's dad and his siblings taken in around 1916. Dad has ringlets and a lace shirt and looks very sweet.

Sue xx

Linda, that is so sad that there are no photos of your OH's family. I hope someone somewhere will be able to help at some time in the future.

I used to have a young boy for respite care. His mother had never taken photos, but that was nothing to how she treated him until he was taken away from her. Anyway, I took many photos during the four years that I had him staying with me and I put them in an album for him to take when he finished the respite care. He did change from 11 to 15, so at least he has those to look back on.

It is sad that your OH has no photos, Linda. Like Berona I hope that perhaps something will turn up one day.

Sue xx

Bl**dy H*ll

So many posts.

I acknowledge you all but it will take me ages to catch up with the posts so I will 'see' you all later

Allan

Sorry I got called away, by a panicky phone call from my brother. he had gone to mum's house to leave some papers in the safe for me and had set the burglar alarm off and couldn't stop it from ringing. It seems to think he was inputting an incorrect code.Eventually he stopped it, but then didn't know how to reset the thing. I think one of the buttons must be sticking. I have a smart key fob to flash at it,so don't need to press the buttons. I will have to get an engineer out,another job to put on the list.

I blithely told him to leave it and I would go and sort it out, but then remembered that I can't because my car is in for service today. When OH stopped working,we decided to sell one of the cars,as living in this small town, we tend to walk everywhere and it seemed silly to pay out for two cars. Most days, it is not a problem, only on Thursdays when he wants to use it to get to the start of his Ramblers walk. I must admit to begrudging him the use of it, anyway the car which we kept was mine!

I often wonder how my mum used to cope, she could never drive, so buses were the only option.I think she would have liked to learn, but dad would never countenance it. Over the last few years,she often remarked what a blessing it was that I could drive, so that I could ferry her about.

At one stage, for a mercifully short time, both my grown up children were living here with us and all four of us had cars. Now that did make me feel guilty about destroying the environment, but as we have plenty of parking on our property,we weren't cluttering the street up. When we have been back to photograph the houses we lived in as children, that is one thing OH has remarked on. The streets seemed so much bigger back then, not only because he was smaller then, but because there are so many cars parked, but hardly any one owned them back then

Anyway enough of this reminiscing, I am off to do some of the dreaded cleaning.

Hiya all.

I too have some older style frames that i have the older photos in...I have my grandparents wedding photos plus my parents and also one of each of my parents when they were toddlers. They are silver frames kind of antique style with gems in them all different but by the same maker..I also have another side table with the modern style wooden frames with latest photos..I am a huge lover of photos and one of the great things about my work is that i go into elderly ladies homes and they often are telling me the history of their photos...One lady that i use to visit weekly has dementia but every time I went to her house she would bring out the photos and we would chat about them...It was great therapy for her and I loved to be able to share that time with her.

Hope you have all had/enjoying your Wednesday !!

Hello everyone.
This is just a quick hi because i'm at work and am just popping out to the bank etc ec
Hope you'll all having either a nice day or a good sleep.
Linda, Hope you manage to sort out the alarm.
Pat x

Good Morning/Evening Everyone,

I absolutely love old family photo's. I especially like the Studio ones where the people posed, in their finery, usually in front of amazing backdrops. I have several taken in Edwardian times, when bamboo furniture was obviously in vogue. The fashions are fascinating too. The men in their heavy three piece suits, watchchains across waistcoats, and the ladies in their very sombe dresses, dark colours, and lots of lace. Girls, and sometimes boys in frock dresses. I have a family group of my OHs Grandparents, and their four young daughters, including my MIL, aged 5yrs in 1911, taken outside their cottage. I had it blown up, and cut into an oval, then framed in a large oval black laquer Edwardian frame.

Linda........Hope you got the alarm switched off, or you'll not be very popular in that area. We once had neighbours that went away frequently at weekends. We always knew when they were away because the alarm would go off during Friday night, and continue until they returned on Sunday evening. Somehow we all got used to it, with a lot of muttering.

Sue.... Yes that was an interesting chat I had with Mac "The Old Geezer"
As soon as I mentioned Croydon airfield he seemed to get very excited.
So strange that we were apparently on that airfield at the same period, and doing the same things.. I hadn't forgotten about that period of my life, but it is many years since I thought about it. Was I ever that young?
At the time I couldn't decide whether to join the Royal Air Force, or the Merchant Navy, somehow the MN won the day. I never regretted it.

Hello Patricia.....How was your day?

Tec

Good morning/evening everyone:-)) Hope you are all well.

Another grey, miserable day here by the looks of it. We've had some decent rain here over the last few days so the lawns are looking green and healthy. Gone are the days when we could put a sprinkler on the lawn due to water restrictions. In fact we found our old one the other day and we said that we couldn't remember the last time we used it. Gone also are the days of children running through the water on hot summer days. Our children loved to do that but their children have never known it.

As with some of you photos are my great passion. Old ones are what inspired me to scrapbook as I wanted a safe place to store them. Now the grandchildren each have their own scrapbooks which chronicle the important events in their lives. They love looking through their very own album and I think it's a good way to show them how very special each one of them is. When we go to Hobart I take our grandson's album with me and it's the first thing he asks for.

Sue xx

goodevening / morning all

Hi Tec
I too went on Mac's thread, wasn't sure if he ment he was in Royal Airforce or Royal Navy, I take it he ment Royal Airforce.
How's you and OH today, the weather has been really mild in my neck of the wood's but overcast at time's.

Berona glad you enjoyed your day, so it will be your 39th next yr lol

Sue it is really nice to have photo's of your family and rellie's and know who they all are, I received some of my BM recently with her father and HB, I had some of my BM that my adopted mum had kept for me with some letter's off my BM, they kept in touch for about 21/2yrs after I was born. The knew photo's I received were on my e-mail message and I sent them to my grand-daughter's and asked who they thought the picture was of, all 3 of my grand-daughter's said it was a photo of me when I was younger.

Diane

Hi, Diane. How are you going? Any sign yet of a break from work?

Sue xx

Good Morning Sue, Hope the day brightens up for you,

Hi Diane,
We're fine thankyou , OH is a lot better, but not yet well enough to go out.
Mac was in the Royal Navy.
Weather was very mild here too, but overcast, Friday will be wet.

Tec