Caged Rabbits

We bought a new rabbit cage yesterday. It is an indoor cage because my wife has decided it is too cold outside for our very elderly rabbit. The cage is a substantial plastic job, of a scale and complexity which would make a rabbit estate agent salivate ("detached slumber chamber, capacious perambulatory domain" etc etc). The only way to fit this edifice in my room was to place it on "stilts" on top of a corner cupboard and the only stilts available were a couple of old box files. Doing a quick check to make sure that the boxes were empty, a photograph fell to the floor - and what a photograph it is.

This first thing I must say is that I have no idea who it is. However I do remember seeing it before: several years ago when I was trying to sort out some old family photographs. At the time I asked my mother and father who it was a photograph of, and they had no idea. The recognised family photographs were filed away - the mysterious couple must have remained in the box... forgotten.

So who on earth are this odd couple? Is it a man and a women or two women? If the latter, why the bizarre clothing? And what was the occasion? If you look closely you can see it is not a studio photograph, there is grass underfoot. Could it have been taken at a fair or a showground?

It makes you want to write the back-story. Look at the faces closely. Could they be sisters? Arnold Bennett once so two such elderly sisters sitting at a hotel dinner table. His imagination was set in motion and he wrote "Old Wives Tale" (one of his best novels). There is a confidence about the two figures... no shrinking violets these .... no caged rabbits.