Friday, March 08, 2013

Sepia Saturday 167 : The Burden Of Foresight


Our Sepia Saturday theme photograph this week features an old pier and a ferry boat. My Sepia Saturday contribution this week features an old pier and a ferry boat. All that separates them is 10,519 miles and the burden of foresight. The theme photograph was taken in the Sydney suburb of Mosman whilst my photograph was taken in Bowness-on-Windermere in the English (Marilyn, please note) Lake District. My photograph comes from a little album of "Snapshots" that contains photographs taken by my father of holidays he and my mother took around Britain in the late 1930s. They would take off on their motorbike, stay at boarding houses and bed and breakfasts and see the sites of the British Isles. 

As Europe lumbered towards war and near oblivion, Albert and Gladys - and millions like them - would crowd on board pleasure steamers and saunter along piers in the summer sun. Within a few short years, the pleasure boats became warships and the waterside piers became boarding points for an endless procession of troops. The 1930s were a strange, odd decade : a sentence brought to a premature end without a pleasing metaphor. As my father snapped that peaceful Lakeland scene did he know what the years ahead would hold in store for him and his friends? Of course not: foresight can often be a burdensome thing.

To view more Sepia Saturday contributions, stroll along to the Sepia Saturday Blog and follow the links.

24 comments:

  1. A decade brought brought to an end, too, without a pleasing metaphor, but oh what a decade. I'm coming across more and more photographs from this period giving clues to how much things had changed since immediate post-Great War times, and yet how unstable they were. Thanks for providing yet more food for thought, as you always do.

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  2. I find it very reassuring that despite the fact that the world seems to fall apart around us, most people just try to keep going with the things we enjoy; holidays, parties, living.. I was looking at some old snapshots from my grandmother taken in about 1924 and the thing that struck me was that they all looked like they were having a great time. Good on them!

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  3. You have put a rather nondescript photo into a historical context that makes people think. I have similar thoughts when I look at happy photos of people that die in the next year or so. It's a sobering realization, but for that day at least they were happy.

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  4. And here we are today, posting away on Sepia Saturday while the world falls apart around us. Again.

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  5. It's a lovely photo...and it looks like a fun ride! It's a good thing we can't see the future...we would worry away the present!

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  6. Our parents went through very challenging times when they were young. They suffered through the depression and then the war hit.They lost a large part of their young lives.
    Your photo really catches the pleasant time people could have.

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  7. Sometimes I think your posts are upside down, Alan. The writing should be at the top. Decades are just arbitrary numbers, there are always events happening every year that change the future unexpectedly. But it was the unimaginable enormity of both World Wars that makes our hindsight so vivid.

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  8. I have to agree too, some things are so much better left unknown, and we must value every minute in life because sometimes it's over far too soon!

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  9. A super post. I think the people were cramming in as much fun before the war interrupted their lives. My parents always said the war stole 6 years of their young lives.

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  10. Ah... Windermere so beautiful! It's nice that people were able to enjoy rides on the steamers before they became warships.

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  11. I didn't need to be told that this was Windermere as I recognised it immediately even if the picture is from before my time (just!).

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  12. It is a good thing that history didn't repeat itself with a third World War.

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  13. What a beautiful photo, Alan. I like the idea of your young parents driving around on their bike, staying in B & B's, exploring, and having fun.

    Kathy M.

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  14. Know the view, the boat is the Swan I believe

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  15. You could take that photo today and it would look very much the same in Bowness, maybe with more people. I have been told that the 1930s was the perfect time to visit the Lake District.

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  16. Your parents must have made hundreds of happy memories in those years of touring around the British Isles on their motorbike; memories that would have sustained them through the hard times.

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  17. What lovely memories they must had had..footloose and fancy free..I would have enjoyed a day or two on that boat also! :)

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  18. The Pleasing Thing About The Lakes Is It's Seemingly Timeless Quality.A Very Tranquil Moment Captured.

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  19. Oh, the Lake District. Such a beautiful area. I would love to go back there and sail around one of the lakes, especially on one like this.

    I think the last time I was on a boat was up at Lake Tahoe on an old paddle wheel boat that crosses the lake. It was a grand day with perfect weather. I'd like to be there right now.

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  20. Good pictures of fun, even if we know what the future held for those people enjoying life. It's for the best that they, and we, don't know what's around the next bend. Carpe diem!

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  21. I haven't been to Windermere for many years, but have fond memories of trips there. You are so right about capturing the moment, and, as others have said, it is a blessing that we cannot see the future, or there may not be so many smiling faces in our snapshots.

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  22. The progression of function from peace to war is sometimes not known but those who lived it did experience the change in their lives in very big ways. The paddleboat looks a little risky as it sits so low in the water.

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  23. This is a wonderful post.

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  24. A lovely view, but surely they were aware of the unrest,
    even if its consequence (WW2) was yet unknown...
    Glad he was able to capture this while it spoke of quiet days,
    before the storm looming far,far away...
    :)~
    HUGZ

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