• Hello, I have recently recieved a number of old photos of the family, as yet unknown to me, and so here they are, in (a hopeful) chronological order. I will also place them where they will enrich the pages devoted to individual people like Grandpa, the 4 sisters, etc.

    New old pictures of the family

    This certainly looks like Cecil and Ethel's wedding which took place in the spring of 1933, see picture below (click on photo and scroll down to Cecil):

    New old pictures of the family

    On this photo I think Cecil's faint resemblance to Charlie Chaplin can be seen.

    New old pictures of the family

    Back to the family with this all feminine pose!

    New old pictures of the family

    1936: on this photo there are (sitting) Harriet Ann Lewis, Ethel Fletcher's mother, I believe Ethel on her right, who looks slightly diffident, but perhaps it's the sunlight in her eyes, because it seems to play the same trick on her diginified mother! Then on the left of Harriet, a nurse (looking also very severe, Goodness), holding a baby who should be my newborn mother, Cath, because I think I recognize the black shock of hair of the infant in the foreground, belonging to Mary. The latter was supposed to sit on her little stool for the photograph, but something made her turn round at the wrong moment!

    New old pictures of the family

    1938: A nice picture of Auntie Lilian with her sister Ethel's two elder girls. Mum's probably playing at tea parties...

    New old pictures of the family

    1938: Lilian (left) with one of her sisters near Forth Bridge. Which sister though? They were 6 children, and five girls! And here's the back of the photo:

    New old pictures of the family

    What is referred to as "the sisters' luck" is anyone's guess...

    New old pictures of the family

    Early 1940s: Veronica as a baby in the garden: I like the grin!

    New old pictures of the family

    Around 1950: a rare picture of our great-grandma, Erminia (aka Nana), standing with her daughter Olive and two of her son's daughters. This is for me the first time I see Nana standing! I had always pictured her as a half-invalid, surrounded by benevolent children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren! This photo is also a rare snapshot of Auntie Olive when she was not yet "old"! If the date is 1950, then she was "only" 48!

    New old pictures of the family

    1950: a great picture of a Hughes holiday in Cornwall - the story doesn't say whether they sailed on this boat! Here's what AB says about the people in the picture who aren't family:

    Auntie Jean in the straw hat is seated behind her mother. Must have told you that she was a GP (grateful patient!) of Auntie V’s during her midwifery years but sadly was never able to have children. "Uncle" George, the skipper and her husband took the picture. In between Cath and Jo was a relative of theirs with the husband and child and little boy in front there. It was taken at the ‘Bonnie Lad’s’ moorings at Tavistock…I think. "Auntie" Jean was an old patient of Auntie’s when she worked as a midwife before she married my father. My own mother had been a patient of hers too as a matter of fact….. Uncle George was A. Jean’s husband old. We went down to Cornwall on holiday as a family once or twice and once when it was just Mary and I who went. I did see them again in the ‘70’s. Lovely people. No family of their own in the end though. I have no idea in what capacity Auntie helped them except as a midwife on the ward, but they stayed in touch as did many of her patients. Auntie V must have been a wonderful nurse to keep so many patients as firm friends over the years. I’ll ask Mary if she knows where the ‘Bonnie Lad’ was moored. Could be Looe but I’ll let you know. The lady in front of Auntie Jean in the straw hat was her mother in the smaller hat. No relation to us though. The young family were relatives I think but not ours.

    New old pictures of the family

    Is this picture of Mary and David before their wedding (sept 1957)? After? 1957? 1958? Those who remember could tell me!

    New old pictures of the family

    1965 a fun picture of Cath, Olive and the three elder Millous in a familiar relationship!

    New old pictures of the family

    Grandma stretching her legs on the porch with Mark, Carol and Janet (1968) There's also the shadow of the photographer!


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  •  

    Grandma anecdotes

     When I think of Auntie, it’s funny how certain little anecdotes come back: for example I was travelling on the tube with her once, I was perhaps 14, and she must have been taking me to the Science Museum or something of the kind. The train had just stopped at one station, and in order to test my reactions, I suddenly jumped out on the platform through the open door, looked at the open door from the platform, and then went back inside before the door shut. For me, this was a sort of experiment which I remember I wanted to perform, having several times before wondered how it felt to do that. But what I had not counted on was Grandma’s reaction to my experiment! She was quite shocked and frightened, and I was surprised to realize it. From outside the train I saw her frantic face looking at me and calling me back inside immediately. As soon as I had got back on, she told me “Don’t be so daft, Vivi!” This must have been the worst thing she ever said to me. I deserved it of course, but had not at all anticipated I would have put her under any such stress.

    Another anecdote that I still tell occasionally when referring to Grandma is when Paco and I saw her unblock the downstairs toilet in which too much paper had been thrown (after somebody’s runny number had been dropped there). She actually plunged her hand and forearm into the bowl, and even if I knew she had no sense of smell to make the operation very unpleasant, she couldn’t not feel what was inside blocking it!! For me this little fact represents Grandma’s power of self-denial and practicality. She might have waited for a skilled worker to come and do the job, or try first with a stick or something. But no, she knew how to do it, she had probably done it before, and this man’s job was not too much for her!

    Grandma had a fabulous sense of hospitality and help, something I gathered as instances of them added throughout the years. Of course the house was big, especially after Monsieur Père’s death, but I always knew this didn't explain everything. She had hosted a guest for one year, a young girl I believe – those who lived in England at the time will remember better than I can – and I still think that this hospitality was remarkable, because the young person had problems, perhaps a disrupted family, and having her meant risking the quiet of the house and upsetting its routine. I know this type of help was extended at other occasions, and not only to family.

    Grandma also extended educational help to all her grandchildren, that is, those who were in need, and while this isn’t as noteworthy as having a stranger stay in her house, I look upon it as a feat, because it meant reading and studying books, plays, and novels so as to be able to provide her grandchildren with the needed encouragement & help. Now I know that Grandma wasn’t a born scholar, saying this is no insult to her memory. She must have known it, at least partly, and yet she willingly tasked herself to do the homework. I know from Auntie Olive’s letters that she enjoyed some of it, for example she loved reading novels like Pride and Prejudice, but this doesn’t take away the merit I think she deserves.

    One funny thing we occasionally still laugh about with Tini or Paco is that Grandma would always celebrate our birthdays by sending us a card in which she would enclose a 1£ note. I naturally realize that if she did that for all her grandchildren, it meant 23 pounds each year, still it seemed to us an increasingly laughable gift, I am ashamed to record. We would pronounce the word with our French accent, "pooned" and associate her with the repeated and recurrent little gift she would send us right until the end of our teens, never mind the inflation. We would of course spend the wretched pound, anyway! Today this little banknote simply evokes the gentle attention she bore to each of us. Among all her activities, she found the time to send those birthday wishes, and perhaps I wouldn’t remember them half so well if they had been better calculated.

    See also: Grandma's love and Grandma's recordings. There are also some posts on her trinkets! here and here.

    May 9th 2014: Jan has just been telling me about how when she was 8 Grandma had bought her this sewing machine which she still uses today!

    Grandma anecdotes

     


    2 comments
  • Hello, when Cath and Charles were here yesterday, I asked mum about those strange photos, as yet not posted:

    Christmas pictures of 1962

    I didn't know why some of them were yellow, and where they had been taken. But mum reassured me that yes, they were 9 Derwent pictures, and the yellow ones had been covered with varnish, perhaps because at the time, Charles had wanted to heighten their quality (maybe he had wanted to draw them). Here is a series of four (not very good quality) which probably belonged to the same period, but when? that is the question:

    Christmas pictures of 1962

    Christmas pictures of 1962

    Christmas pictures of 1962

    Christmas pictures of 1962

    It was funny to listen to Cath and Charles, because they disagreed about the date, and even the possibility, which mum insisted on, that the photos were really taken at Christmas. They finally agreed it must have been the Christmas period. But they didn't agree on the date either! 1961 or 1962? We decided, with mum, that because of Tini's apparent age in the series above, that these four photos at least had to be 1962. But Charles still disagrees, saying he couldn't have come to England at that date. So, another mystery!

     

    Christmas pictures of 1962, perhaps

    Christmas pictures of 1962, perhaps

    Not sure these last two fit here, but it's a guess!

     


    your comment
  • I'm hoping, with this post, to begin a series on Broomfield Park, series which would hopefully be chronological, and correspond more or less to the period of occupation of the Hughes in the vicinity!

    Thanks to Noël for a number of these pictures! (they are taken from the Internet, any misappropriation can be rectified)

    Broomfield Park 1

    Some old pictures, always nice to see what well-known places used to look like:

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

     

    Broomfield Park 1Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    Broomfield Park 1

    So if you find some old or older pics of the Park, you know where to send them!


    your comment
  • I've posted a number of photos of our wedding party celebrated on Nov 2nd, 1985 at 9 Derwent road (here, here, and here) but I thought I might put them all together in one post, and add the ones which I haven't yet posted!

    That wedding party in 1985

    I remember AB had Mum all made up for the occasion!

    That wedding party in 1985

    And I remember thinking it didn't really suit her! Then there was that photo session outside in the sun:

    That wedding party in 1985

    I wonder what was so funny...!

    That wedding party in 1985

     

    That wedding party in 1985

    That wedding party in 1985 

    It was already getting a little cold for Auntie Olive!

    That wedding party in 1985

     

    That wedding party in 1985

    That wedding party in 1985

    That wedding party in 1985

    Then the party inside:

    That wedding party in 1985

    That wedding party in 1985

    That wedding party in 1985

    That wedding party in 1985

    That wedding party in 1985

    In order to invite our guests, I had written a limerick about "a young couple from France"... But I haven't kept a copy. But somebody answered it, Grandma's friend, Father Romuald who wrote to us from Rome (here!)


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