Glassensikes

My first work meeting in London this month was full of posturing and petty quibbles. I'd planned to look out for some blip opportunities after the meeting but by then I'd got the hump and headed straight home.

Instead I offer Glassensikes.

We have a large box of photographs inherited from my wife's grandfather. The earliest date from the 1870s and the latest around 1942. There are quite a lot of formally posed Victorian portraits, several from the Lafayette studio in Dublin in the 1880s, others are portraits of young men going off to the first world war and, unusually perhaps, a number of domestic interiors and street candid shots.

This particular image has the word 'Glassensikes' written on the front. It was printed as a postcard and several copies were posted by the wife's grandfather (who appears in the photograph) in Darlington on 27th October 1914.

I'd previously assumed that 'Glassensikes' was a nickname for the troops. However it turns out to be the house (seen in the background) and comes from a local stream called Glassensikes ('glassen' meaning blue or grey; a 'sike' was a small beck). Early in the war the house was given over as a home for Belgian refugees. At the same time the grounds were used as a venue for a 'Soldiers Club' which was organised by a young clergyman, my wife's grandfather. The photograph is of the 2nd Northumbrian Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery who were camping nearby from 22nd August until 19th October when they left for Newcastle.