Babyphoto Challenge

Today's picture has been taken as part of the The People Twitcher's babyphoto challenge.

I spent a long time deciding which photograph to use and in the end decided on a collection inspired by this one. Unfortunately I do not have my identity card or a baby book. However, I have included the photograph of me taken at school for the Queen's Coronation, she ascended the throne immediately her father died, but was not actually crowned until 1953.

The photograph in the middle is me at six months old and was taken in Lilian Ream's studio. She was most famous for her photographs depicting peoples' working and rural life, rather than for studio portraits; many of these used to be available to look at in the Wisbech and Fenland Museum. Some have been produced as postcards and a particularly famous one was 'The Mole Catcher'. You may wonder why I am interested in her; she was my Great Aunt. The copyright of this photograph belongs to her, thanks Aunt Lilian for taking what I think is the earliest photograph of me.

The photograph bottom left is me getting out of a deck chair and I suspect was taken by my mother with her Box Brownie. I am assuming it was taken at Hunstanton in Norfolk as we went there frequently in the summer. Always impatient I appear to be getting out of it; I have not changed, as my family will tell you, I am still impatient.

The one at the top left is me with my mother, photographer unknown, although I suspect it was taken by another Aunt and Uncle who always accompanied us to Hunstanton. The one at the bottom right is the Coronation school photograph and the folder it was presented in is shown above it.

I did try to find one of me as a child with my father, but I could not find one although there were several of me sitting on his dog and playing in his pig pens! He was the most important person in my life and I would not be here without him. I was delivered by my father, again in a hurry, ten days early and before the midwife got there. The story goes that I was born the night it started snowing and this delayed the midwife, this was the start of the dreadful 1946/1947 winter. I then developed whooping cough, given to me by a kind relative who visited on Christmas day and I was not expected to live. My father had other ideas and it was he who looked after me for six weeks until I recovered.

Today's blip shows pictures of me and gives a little history from around the area at that time.