Two photographs from 1933

And here my mother Kath is the baby of the group: neither of her parents nor her brother are there – perhaps she has been “parked” for the day at her auntie’s house in Wrexham.  She is with her cousins Mollie (in white) and Marjorie.  In the deck chair is Bella, their mother and Kath’s auntie.  The older lady on the left is Jane, an auntie of Bella’s husband.

Kath looks out with a direct, evaluating gaze in which I recognise our older daughter.  Mollie and Marjorie stand awkwardly between the seated figures.  Bella has a relaxed smile, while Jane’s austere look recalls the demands of the previous generation of photography, which required a neutral expression which could be held through the long exposure.

Kath was especially fond of Mollie, seven years her senior, and I imagine her spending a pleasant day as the centre of attention for her cousins and her auntie.  Marjorie’s fiancé Gwilym probably took the photo, as he appears in a separate picture from which Marjorie is absent.

Photography was an expensive business back then, and every picture, good or bad, had to be paid for.  But Gwilym worked as the manager of a chemist’s shop, and was able to develop his own photographs. Usually old photos we see are posed, slightly formal affairs, and the spontaneous snaps now so familiar were rare.

Enter Jock the dog.  Perhaps he was exiled to the house while the ‘proper’ photo was taken.  But now he bounds out for a tummy rub from Mollie, and Gwilym captures the moment.

All eyes are on Mollie and Jock.  Marjorie smiles at the scene, but Kath seems not to share her pleasure – perhaps she’s wary of the dog.  Her carefully combed hair falls girlishly across her face, and the most fleeting of moments is preserved.

I cannot now ask my mother if she remembers this, or can tell me more about the photo.  But how strange and wonderful to be able to see her, more than fifty years younger than I now am, caught on this summer’s day.