Saturday, March 21, 2015

Sepia Saturday 271 : The Bitter Draught Of Progress

This week our Sepia Saturday theme image features a group of horses gathered around a stream and enjoying a refreshing drink after the toil of a working day. So many possibilities here for the creative Sepian - horses, streams, work - to mention just a few, but for some reason or another I decided to go for a drink!



So here I am enjoying a pint and what looks like a cigar with the Excellent Lady Wife and her parents, Raymond and Edith Berry. I have no idea where the photograph was taken (it is indeed rare for me to forget a pub) and I can only guess as to when it was taken - and that would be sometime in the mid 1970s. At that time we were living in London so it might have been taken in the beer garden of a southern pub (the beer gardens of northern pubs tend to be full of pigeon lofts and forced rhubarb). 


A second image from my scanned negative archives features a northern pub, the Royal Oak in Skipton. It will have been taken in 1966 or early 1967 when I was still at school. We were on a geography field trip to Skipton and whilst the rest of the class surveyed artesian basins and sketched U shaped valleys, a few of my school mates and I went off to the pub.  As far as I can discover, the pub has now been converted to a guest house - with neither pigeons nor rhubarb in sight.  Such is the bitter draught of progress.

She what other Sepia Saturday contributors are up to this week by calling in at the Sepia Saturday Blog and following the links.

12 comments:

  1. Great photos, you look so happy too! I wonder though if her daddy is ready to yawn or in mid song? I want to say he's singing!

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  2. Was there some kind of hair growth compound in that ale? Where can I get some?

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  3. If I remember correctly there was a lot of hair around in the 1970s. I expect it was some sort of infectious disease that afflicted most men between the ages of 13 and 45. There was a lot of hair for girls too of course but not so luxuriant.

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  4. A pint in one hand, a smoke in the other?
    Yikes...

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  5. It is a great follow for the theme. I really struggled on this one so you don't see me joining this week. I know you must value the two photos as they are such a great visual of personal history.

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  6. Glad to see you only were so blessed with hair in the 70s, but not so much in the 60s...don't you want to put a word into your father-in-laws mouth, as suggested by Karen? How now brown cow?

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  7. More evidence that your enthusiasm for photos of pubs has a long history, Alan.

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  8. It's hard to escape mentioning that hair! Whoa. But that was the 70s. Were those natural curls? My brother's hair was straight as could be, but he grew it out a bit & had it permed - and kept the style to an extent and I actually think he looked better with it that way.

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  9. I was pleased to see the handle on the pint - that makes it northern surely.

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  10. That Royal Oak may be gone, but I'm sure there are still plenty of pubs of the same name around. Hope you passed your geography assessment!

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  11. Pretty slick to skip out on a school field trip.

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  12. With that hair you could be related to my husband! Great old photos , however did you manage to visit a pub on a school outing? :)

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