Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week features a "Picture Palace" and therefore it seemed appropriate to feature a picture of a palace. And where better to turn to when you want to find a visual commentary of British social history than the collected snapshot albums of Frank Fieldhouse ("Uncle Frank"). The joy of these albums - which cover a twenty year period from the early thirties to the early fifties - is not just the photographs, but the written commentary that has been added to the charcoal black album pages in indelible pencil (I can see the substation figure of Uncle Frank given an encouraging lick to the point of the pencil as I write). I have chosen a couple of pages from an album entitled "Great Yarmouth and Norfolk Tour, July/August 1950"
As you can see the photographs were taken outside Sandringham Castle in Norfolk, and yes, that indeed is Auntie Miriam stood next to the policeman. The King they didn't see was King George the Somethingorother. But they were lucky enough to catch sight of Princess Margaret who will have been on her way to the other palace to play bingo.
To see other Sepia Saturday contributions, stroll on over to the Sepia Saturday Blog.
Substation figure? What was Uncle Frank's line of work? Funny the way he put the second photo in vertically to match the first one, despite it being a horizontal view shot, and there being plenty of space to display it that way. A different angle from which to approach the theme photo this week.
ReplyDeleteI really like the yellow writing on black. Quirky. I have a number of old postcard albums, dating from the same period. They also have these charcoal pages. I love the thought of Margaret slipping off to play bingo.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting old album. I remember my parents had one similar but silly me updated it??
ReplyDeleteThe comments are priceless. Love Auntie Miriam, always smiling.
ReplyDeleteOff to the palace to play bingo. I think this should be on a t-shirt.
ReplyDeleteHaha bingo it was, I hope she won!
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