My Father's Family

[poliphilo]

My father with his parents, Cyril and Violet in 193?, captured by a street photographer.



Cyril and Violet (seated) celebrate their golden wedding anniversary at the Old Forge, Hallam, with my grandmother's sisters (l to r) Joan, Ethel and Kathleen, my father and- the gawky one in the middle- me.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I love seeing these pics!
Tom F

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You need to corral Granny sometime and demand to see the family archives. :)

[kishenehn.livejournal.com]

You were a cutie! :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was rather.... ;)

[thewayupward.livejournal.com]

i really like the pictures you've been posting. and you look so sweet in this last one!

p.s. been meaning to say hi - coincidentally i am sort-of on your patch of turf as i'm in the middle of term in oxford at the moment. a lot of the photos you take of churches and castles and so on look much more familiar to me now!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Oxford is extraordinarily beautiful. Are you getting about much? Any chance of you visiting this part of the country?

[thewayupward.livejournal.com]

it is! took me a while to settle in but i am getting about more now - went down to london a couple of weeks ago, will probably spend some time there before my flight home for christmas (unless i go to wales, which is the other plan). so i might end up visiting manchester - will let you know if i do. drop me an email or something if you are ever around oxford!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Wales is good. Beautiful scenery!

It would be really good to see you!

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I am really enjoying this series of old photos.

You still rather look like your young self.
The smile, the eyes...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I don't remember ever being as sweet and goofy as I look in that picture. :)

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I *love* Cyril and Violet. I guess families really did used to walk arm-in-arm--very cool to see them captured in situ.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My father was an adored only child- and very close to his parents.

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

What a sweet little boy you were!

Cute as a button!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Aw shucks :)

[oakmouse]

I love street photographer shots. I have one from the early 1930s of my grandmother and great-grandmother sailing down the street like a pair of irritated Cunard liners. *g*

What a cutie that boy in the middle is! ;)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Strett photographers used to be common- especially at seaside resorts. Now we all carry our own cameras.

A cutie? *blushes deeply*

[oakmouse]

There's a quality of cheerful innocence I don't remember seeing in my brothers' friends (your approximate contemporaries) when I was a kid. They all had an assumed sullen toughness, possibly because they knew that inevitably a number of them would (and did) end up being cannon fodder in Vietnam. In that picture you've got this sort of charming happiness that's really rather sweet.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't remember being cheerfully innocent- more like broody and sullen and a bit snooty- but I guess the camera doesn't lie. :)

[oakmouse]

Au contraire, the camera is quite capable of lying like a rug; ask anyone who has studied UFO photography. *g* Still, here it may have preserved one particular good mood for future reference.

[momof2girls.livejournal.com]

I love these old pictures of your family, especially seeing your grandparents' golden wedding anniversary picture after seeing the one of Violet as a girl!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's something a little scary about being able to jump the years like this.

I'm the only person in that second picture who's still alive.

[alice-g.livejournal.com]

GGpa Cyril looks so cool!! he could give Brando a run for his money!!! Wow. And you do look cute, but seriously, you could get away with that look now if you were in the Kings of Leon my fave band!!! xx

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess I was just born out of my time. :)

There was something a bit godfatherish about Grandpa Cyril. He was a big softie with his family- but you wouldn't have wanted to cross him in a business deal.

[michaeljohngrist.com (from livejournal.com)]

Cyril absolutely looks like a bad-ass. Damn, and so does grandpa when young. What a dork you look in the picture though! But like Alice says- a sweet kind of dork. Actually you look a bit like Alice? Maybe...

[(Anonymous)]

I wish people wouldn't want to cross me in a business deal
Tom

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You just gotta make them an offer they can't refuse.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Cyril grew up in the slums of Erith- a rough-house riverside town. He was a real toughie.

I seem to remember you going in for the floppy-haired look once upon a time. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder how he made the transition from slums to high flying business man, especially at a time when the class barriers were more distinct. Hard work and ambition I imagine. Was he in sales?
Tom

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe he was in sales. He certainly travelled quite a bit. Granny has photographs taken on a trip to South America in the 1920s. It was one of his boasts that he was a member of the first business delegation to be let into Russia after the 2nd World War.

He was always mysterious about his origins. I asked him once about his father and he told me that some things were best left in the dark. Your ma has done some research- and discovered that Cyril's mother was married to a man called Charles Grist who died shortly before or after Cyril was born. Was he Cyril's father? I suspect not. I went to Erith a couple of years ago to try to find the family home- but it's no longer there- and the site is occupied by a night club.

Cyril loved books and was very well read. I've no idea where or how he got his education.