GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 62) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDE 0502

Grandfather really liked his Rover...!

This is another rather excellent photograph and yet I think that it's fairly evident that he didn't take it himself, unless the camera was sitting on a windowsill and set on its buzzing clockwork timer mechanism...

But my (...!) the fellow's certainly looking rather dapper here, isn't he? That rakish colourful shirt, that wide tie, and that natty three-piece dark suit speak very much of his musician's ways, although the big black car and stern face might suggest something of the spiv, the gangster, or maybe, just maybe, the debt collector rolling up to the kerbside and putting the fear of God into some poor householder.

All faces which the rest of us knew well from time-to-time.

Still, let's be kind and suggest that this belongs to the photo shoot for the cover of yet another of his unacclaimed series of non-albums of organ favourites and leave it there.

The old smoothie...

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, by the way, this and the next few photographs were either taken in Lincolnshire or Northampton in 1957, but I'm not sure whether that's the case or which it might be, if either, because I'm pretty sure I've never been to wherever it is (at least not at an age that I have any memories of).

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 61) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0497-0501

That long, endless summer afternoon in my Grandparents' garden seems to persist through this set of pictures although, with that strange sense of displaced time that the running order of the slides seems to have, we begin with another picture of that much-loved Rover with my Grandmother quite possibly trying to finish off my Grandfather with the shock of pretending that she's about to get into it and attempt to drive off in it.

This probably never happened, but I like to think of it being the kinds of games that they might have played when the likes of us weren't around.

Then we're taken back to that sunny afternoon in their garden with tea being taken and sun-loungers, rugs and chairs set out for an afternoon of leisure during the height of summer.

I've still got that rug, by the way.

Today, as I write, it's on the sofa in the living room of my own tiny little house which is (after Grandfather literally sank the family fortunes by trying to build a solid gold yacht*) about the same size, more or less, as that great big Rover car.

The two pictures of my sister may very well have been taken in their garden, too... although, given that the next slides do take us on their travels again, this is by no means certain.

Pretty dress, though.

*This never happened

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 60) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0495-0496

Two random photographs of a budgie in a cage, obviously taken outside to enjoy the sunshine in my Grandparents' garden, sometime during 1957.

This whole budgerigar thing is a bit confusing for me because my Grandparents never really struck me as being "pets" people. They were very eager to encourage my sister's interest in horses, of course, but, as far as I know, never kept any themselves.

Equally, there have been several pictures of my Grandmother seemingly enjoying the company of other people's dogs, but I have no recollection of them ever having one of their own

Now I come to think about it, I do seem to recall mention of a cat at some point, but I think it must have been long gone before the any of the eras that the slides have been covering because it never appears in any of the pictures I've scanned.

Well pets can bugger up your holiday plans, can't they...?

Of course finding these pictures does make me suddenly aware of the advantages of insider knowledge. One Christmas, much later on in our lives, I do remember the favourite Grandchild buying my Grandmother a budgie in a cage for either a birthday or Christmas, I forget which.

Now the less-favoured Grandchild might have thought this to be a ridiculous idea at the time,  and poured several vats of scorn upon the notion, especially given the "pets free" nature of their home, but also because they had never shown the slightest inclination towards the keeping of budgies as pets in my experience.

But yet... Here we find evidence that they did, and there they once were... and (as I remember it anyway), much unconfined joyfulness (of a relative kind) was imparted in the direction of the more favoured one.

Well, for a while at least...

Sometimes the advantages of being born first and gaining those extra years of insight are many... ;-)

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 59) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDE 0494

Okay. in the middle of a load of family stuff (yes, unfortunately for you, dear reader, there's far more of that sort of nonsense still to come) for no very good reason that I can think of, there is one, just one, rather silhouetted and very random picture of a church.

This, I think, (unless, of course, you know differently) is the very famous crooked spire of the church of St Mary and All Saints in Chesterfield, an effect not caused, apparently, by the lack of skilled tradesmen following the black death, but because of a peculiarity of the lead they used and the way it heats on only one side due to the position of the sun and consequently expanded differently on opposite sides of the spire.

Church and science, eh...? Cool...!

Anyway, you can look all that sort of thing up elsewhere if you want to, so I'm not going to drone on about it any more here. 

What I'm more interested in is this one single shot of Chesterfield. There are no further pictures of the town in the entire collection, and yet here it sits, right in the middle of several pictures of an afternoon in the garden of my Grandparents' brand new house.

Granted, sometimes my own camera gains random shots from time to time, when I grab it to capture an unexpected "moment" but a trip to a place seems to be the sort of thing you might just take more than one snapshot of.

It could, of course, be another in my Grandfather's occasional series of photographs on the theme of "When Engineering Goes Wrong" and he was, after all, a plumber, so maybe the actions of lead might have been of some interest.

Or maybe there was a news story on the wireless about how the thing was about to fall down and he wanted to get a quick shot of it before that occurred...?

Then again, there are several pictures of random anonymous weddings in amongst his slides (which we will be coming to eventually), so maybe this is just a misplaced one of those...?

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 58) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0490-0493

The house they called "The Hawthorns" (IN COLOUR!!!) presumably 1957.

In all its red-brick magnificence, with a brand-new car in the driveway, and his shiny wife standing at the garden gate, this possibly - and quite literally - presents the very picture of the peak of aspirational life for a tradesman from Hyde in the mid-to-late 1950s.

What he did to pay for it, I'll never know, but it also seems to represent a high watermark in the fortunes of my family. It has, again quite literally, pretty much been all downhill from there.

If you have been paying attention (and let's face it, why would you have?), you may have noticed that we have, of course, visited the small matter of the creation of this house before - in a blog from way back when called http://m-a-w-h.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/grandads-grand-designs-photoblog.html (if you're that bothered).

Those pictures were in black-and-white, of course, and came from the boxes of loose photographs that I salvaged from my mother's place after she died and which I may decide to finally explore more properly once we start to reach the end of the slide show.

Again... Don't say that you weren't warned...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 57) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0481-0489

Northampton, probably 1957.

This is the bungalow that my parents either didn't want, or couldn't afford, and were persuaded into buying by my Grandfather. I don't think that I ever got the full story, but I seem to remember that it was the source of much bitter resentment in later years.

I never lived there, of course, which helps me with my claim to have bluff northern roots, but with little else. It is peculiar to think though, that, but for a few quirks of fate, my entire life, if I even got to have one at all, could have been lived in a completely different place, and surrounded by an entirely different set of people.

Meanwhile, after that philosophical aside, I notice that the mighty Rover motor-car creeps into two of these nine shots which isn't a bad percentage given my Grandfather's apparent fixation, although I suspect that I ought to give him the benefit of the doubt and point out that it was probably still rather new and, as such, a bit of a novelty and, in those days, probably something to be quite proud of if you were at the aspirational end of society's wobbly ladder.

Pride, eh...? Don't you just loathe it...?

This may demonstrate the exact point where the crucible in which my own lack of ambition would finally brew up was first put on the warming fires, more than half a decade before I was even a twinkle.

This bungalow is also, of course, where my sister spent the early formative and "only child" years of her life, surrounded by fields, and cats, and a toy rocking horse, and with her Grandparents coming to visit in their big shiny black car every once in a while to tell her how marvellous she was and filling her head with tales of real horses and their ideal life at the big house.

She did, in all fairness, and despite a few setbacks, retain her general marvellousness, but this set of pictures may, of course, explain many, many things...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 56) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDE 0479

Another slight shift out of sequence for this rather fabulous shot featuring the now mildly legendary Rover, which may very well have been brand shiny new at this point in time given the fact that yesterday's slides from around the same time featured an entirely different car.

We all need to try and remember that Registration Plate, RLG 915, by the way, as another Rover will appear one day - perhaps in the far distant future at the rate we're progressing - and whilst it appears to be much the same, it will bear an entirely different plate.

This possibly tells of an event that I have no knowledge of or, as is more likely, he liked the first one so much that, when its time came, he bought himself another one.

Grandfather, incidentally, really liked his Rover; It turns up a lot in his photographs, so don't say that you weren't warned...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 55) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0471-0478 & 0480

My triangular sister...

Okay, as far as I am aware, and despite some evidence to the contrary, my sister was never actually triangular.

I believe "Mister Rush", one of the Mister Men was triangular, but I'm fairly certain that we aren't in any way related.

Not with him being a work of fiction and all.

Anyway, this set of pictures show my big sister mostly, I think, taken during a visit to my Grandparents house, probably in much the same 1957 that many of those pictures of Switzerland were taken during.

This is the large detached house with the frankly massive gardens, "The Hawthorns" which he built in the 1950s and which I have mentioned in other blog postings some way in the past.

Some of the indoor chairs and outdoor benches look terribly familiar to me, and in these pictures we do get our one and only glimpse of what I can only assume is the car before the much lauded Rover(s).

Of course the change in outfits might suggest that these are separate visits or, perhaps, this was a longer stay given that, as I think will become apparent in a few pictures' time, my parents were living in an entirely different part of the country at this point in their lives.

Indeed, but for the fickle finger of fate, I might very well have been born in the (gasp!) South, - well, in the Midlands at least...

Which kind of counts.

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 54) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0468-70

Time: Unknown (but probably some point in 1957)

Suddenly we're transported to Scotland... 

Well, at least I think that it is.

This is, however, more guesswork, but the third picture does give more than a hint that we might be on the right track.

Why the pictures suddenly switch to Scotland in the middle of a batch of photographs of Switzerland is anyone's guess, and perhaps speak of some long-forgotten reason in Grandad's slide presentation evenings that we are now unlikely to ever know.

Maybe the box got dropped and the slides were hastily returned to the drawers?

Maybe there's some narrative unfolding that requires this sudden excursion?

Maybe they suddenly realised that they weren't actually married at all and made a hasty diversion to Gretna to remedy the situation...?

Maybe it's all about some weird unfathomable chronology known only to the tangled knot of time that my ancestors inhabit?

Who knows...?

We will, however, be returning to Europe later on in these pictures, perhaps picking up where we left off, or, maybe, visiting a completely different country at a completely different time...?

The mysterious blue box may know all, but it's keeping its secrets to itself.

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 53) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0461-0467

Spiez, Switzerland, 1957

There's nothing particularly remarkable or unusual about this small set of pictures to comment upon really, other than the sinister, dark-hatted figure observing as my Grandfather adjusts his glasses somewhere near to a continental cafeteria, and my Grandmother brandishing an ice-cream cone whilst wearing her remarkable holiday hat. 

A hat, incidentally, that we see in much better detail in the final picture, and one which fails to be blown away as she stands at the waterside.

I've suddenly recognised that black, white-spotted bag, too, which has made my memory leap back to my youth.

Other than that, this is most probably Lake Lucerne, although you may know better.

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 52) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDE 0460

Grandmother goes shopping, Spiez 1957

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it..."

"...is to find this street, somewhere in Switzerland. Just up the road from the Caffe Lago ("No, not Largo, Meester Bond...") is a tiny souvenir shop selling colourful scarves and postcards. You'll recognise the place immediately because of the brightly coloured sun umbrella positioned just outside..."

"There you will meet a bespectacled lady wearing yellow beads and a broad-brimmed straw hat, and, she will ask you "Do you like the green one?" to which you will respond "No, the red one is nicer" and select a postcard showing a scene of the lakeside, which you will ask her opinion upon. She will then invite you to partake in a Double Espresso in a little place just up the road which has the very same view from the back terrace..."

"The future of the free world may very well depend upon what happens next..."

"As ever, should any of your team be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions... This blog will self-destruct in five seconds... Good Luck..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Ah..."

"Forgot to add the 'self-destruct' app..."

"Oops...! My bad...!"

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 51) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0452-0459

Spiez, Switzerland, 1957, possibly...

I don't have a clue who the people in the first group are, although I do remember occasional mentions of a friend in Switzerland called "Adolph" being mentioned from time-to-time when I was growing up. 

Not, in later years, a name that was particularly popular for the naming of children in that part of the world I imagine.

Those kids would be around retirement age by now, I would guess.

There's a pretty nice train in picture two, but this is generally another cluster of pictures of landscapes, cafes, and shopping sprees, much like many other people would take on their jolly holidays, although, as with other pictures that have turned up, the ones taken in cafes seem to prove the most interesting to me for some unfathomable reason.