It's A Mystery

[poliphilo]

 "Should I know any of these people?" asked Ailz from the next room

"Which people?"

"The people in the photograph on the mantlepiece."

"There is no photograph on the mantlepiece."

"Yes there is. Come and see...."

And indeed there was. I hadn't put it there, Ailz hadn't put it there. I asked Carolina  and she said it had been there when she entered the room and she'd carefully dusted round it.

Here's the photograph. I knew the image but I hadn't known we possessed this particular print. It shows a bunch of young people in fancy dress posing with some elders who have moved beyond that kind of frivolity. The only ones I can certainly identify are my grandmother and her three sisters- Ethel, Kathleen and Joan. Violet, my granny, is in the back row just off centre holding a parasol. My guess is she and the other parasol carriers are dressed as the "three little maids from school" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado. Joan, my favourite great aunt, is the kiddie in the foreground in the feathery hat holding what I think is a toy trumpet.

("For, God's sake, someone take it off her. She'll deafen us all!")




Did granny put the photo on the mantlepiece? Did Joan? Did they conspire together? What are they trying to say?

That they're still around?

Well, of course they are.

Comments

[paserbyp]

Looks to me a parasols made in China?

[poliphilo]

I'm thinking Japan- because there was a real vogue for all things Japanese around the turn of the century.

But you could be right.

[paserbyp]

You’re right and it was made in japan.