Saturday Snapshot

Here’s another old photo from my family photos. This is my Great Aunty Emily, who was born in 1886 and died in 1935. On the back of this small photo, mounted on card, my Mother wrote ‘Aunty Emily Miss Taylor at Blackpool’. You can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

I doubt she was actually sat on the beach at Blackpool when this photo was taken, that deck chair looks remarkably near the waves and the sand looks very solid. I suppose she was on holiday there, but as the photo isn’t dated I don’t know when this was.

She was my Grandmother’s younger sister and I’ve found out from the Census Returns that she was born at Lostock Junction, Bolton in Lancashire. My Great Grandfather, her father was Thomas Taylor, a domestic gardener, born in 1856 at Bulwick, Northamptonshire. He had another daughter, Florrie, born in 1901 and a son Thomas William born in 1892. All his children were born in different places, as he moved from Northamptonshire, to Lancashire and then to Cheshire.

Emily never married, but stayed at home acting as Housekeeper for her father after her mother died in 1911. I have a copy of her death certificate 1935, which records that she was aged 51 and died at 94 Victoria Road, Hale, Cheshire of a cerebral haemorrhage. Her occupation was described as ‘Housekeeper (domestic) Daughter of Thomas Taylor a Gardener (domestic) (deceased) of 6 Oak Road, Hale’. My Granny, Evelyn Owens, was present at her death. Had my Granny come to stay with her because she wasn’t well – at that time Granny lived in Pen-y-fford, in Wales?

I knew Florrie because when I was a child she lived in the next road and I used to visit her each week with my Mother. She was lovely and looked very like Emily does in the photo (only older).

I also have a vague memory of Thomas William – Uncle Tom, because when his daughter, Joyce, her husband and their daughter Jennifer (who was born just over a year later than me) emigrated to Australia there was a family party before they left. I don’t know how old I was at the time, probably about 5. I remember Uncle Tom as a very large old man, who was very upset about his daughter emigrating! As usual I’m left wishing I knew more about these people.

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog, At Home With Books.

Around the House and Garden

For this round of ABC Wednesday I’m focussing on various objects in our house and garden, beginning with

A for Asiatic Pheasants and also B for Blue and White Porcelain.

This is an oval meal dish in the Asiatic Pheasants design, which was popular during Queen Victoria’s reign. It’s an English design based on an oriental original and is a much lighter blue than the Willow pattern.

It’s large and very heavy, and I’m rather fond of it. It has a cartouche on the back, which identifies the manufacturer as James Beech 1877 – 1889 in Tunstall Staffordshire.

Booking Through Thursday: An Interview with Me

btt button

Booking Through Thursday asks:

1. What’s your favorite time of day to read? I don’t have a favourite time – any time is best. I read mostly early mornings and late at night.

2. Do you read during breakfast? (Assuming you eat breakfast.) Yes.

3. What’s your favorite breakfast food? (Noting that breakfast foods can be eaten any time of day.) I love porridge for a hot breakfast and muesli when I fancy a cold breakfast.

4. How many hours a day would you say you read? 2 – 3 hours.

5. Do you read more or less now than you did, say, 10 years ago? About the same.

6. Do you consider yourself a speed reader? No

7. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? To read multiple books at the same time.

8. Do you carry a book with you everywhere you go? Not everywhere, but most places – it’s easier now with my Kindle.

9. What KIND of book? If it’s a ‘real’ book it has to be small enough to fit in  my bag or pocket and can be any genre – usually whatever I’m reading.

10. How old were you when you got your first library card? Four or five, I think, or I may have been able to borrow books on my mother’s card, I don’t know. I only remember borrowing books from the library before I went to school aged five.

11. What’s the oldest book you have in your collection? (Oldest physical copy? Longest in the collection? Oldest copyright?) I don’t know the oldest physical book in my collection. It would be one of the books my parents or grandparents owned. I have several of these that I know my parents were given (as school and Sunday School prizes) in the 1920s, but there are a few like these that probably belonged to my grandparents:

Jane Eyre by Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) published by Richard Edward King, 88 Curtain Road, E.C. no date probably 1880s- 90s and The Channings by Mrs Henry Wood, published by Richard Bentley and Son, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen, 1890.

12. Do you read in bed? Yes – see question 1.

13. Do you write in your books?I was brought up never to write in books, but I sometimes do now – in pencil. I have some of my children’s books that I’ve coloured in the line drawings with coloured pencils and some novels I read for school with passages underlined in biro (I’m shocked by my younger self!)

14. If you had one piece of advice to a new reader, what would it be? Read whatever you like and read, read, read. Never believe anyone who tells you that you should be doing something else rather than reading.

Happy New Year 2012

I’m not a great one for making New Year resolutions – or keeping them, but these are a few things I’d like to achieve in my reading this year.

  • Read more from my to-be-read books and keep a record of how many I read (something I didn’t do last year).
  • Read the library books I borrow and not just keep on renewing them, or returning them unread.
  • Not get hung up if I don’t complete the reading challenges I’ve joined. Reading is for pleasure and it’s not something that ‘should’ be done.
  • Weed out and re-house books I know I’ll never re-read.

I’m compiling some statistics and deciding which are my favourite books from 2011, which I’ll post soon.

In the meantime I wish you all a Happy New Year and … Keep on Reading!

Saturday Snapshot – Happy Christmas

There may not be much time for blogging next week, so today I’m wishing all of you a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

The photo below is one of me taken a long time ago when I went to see Father Christmas in Fairytale-Land – actually it was in Lewis’s Department Store in Manchester (not John Lewis), but I thought it was wonderful.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books.

Saturday Snapshot – Stepping Back in Time

Whilst looking through old photos last week (when I posted one of my husband rock climbing) we came across photos of our holiday in Budva in what was then Yugoslavia. We had a wonderful holiday even if I was feeling sick every evening, which I thought was ‘holiday tummy’ until we returned home and realised I was pregnant.

In this photo I have long, dark curly hair (a very curly perm which fortunately was nearly grown out)  – sadly it’s now grey! It was the era of the mini-skirt and hot pants, but here I’m covered head to foot in a delightful yellow creation, borrowed from one of the other holiday makers to cover up when changing out of my bikini.
Me in Yugoslavia poolside (2018_05_20 14_13_57 UTC)

And here we are in Dubrovnik with the owner of the ‘cover-up’ on the left of the photo. I’m the one second from the right next to my husband.

Dubrovnik 01 (2018_05_20 15_18_26 UTC)

Saturday Snapshot is host by Alyce of At Home With Books.