Opportune moments

Some of us will have recalled childhood days at the seaside in the early post-war period.  Many families will have taken a camera with them – a few fortunates may have acquired an early cine camera.  Anyhow, our purchased roll of film, whether 8, 12, 16, 24 or 36 exposures, may have been made to last all week, bearing in mind the additional cost of processing will have to come from our pocket money when we returned home.

COURTESY MARGARET GOWER

There were always commercial photographers who wandered along the promenade, looking out for personable family groups or individuals.  They would take a picture, give you a numbered ticket and let you walk on your way.  The following morning you would race to a notice board on a wall somewhere, and if the print was appealing, and you had spare money, you may have bought it.  One advantage, apart from it invariably being a better picture than any we might have taken, was that it would probably have been the only photograph featuring the entire family.  When (usually) you struggle to find father in the photographic record (it was usually father) and years later wonder whether he was even there at all, you come to realise he was always behind the camera!

COURTESY ALISON MANN

A few years ago I was given a copy of the photo, above right.  The old Camp Road bridge is behind the lady purposefully walking along Camp Road near Campfield Road junction.  It is a well composed image and the lunchtime picture is taken on a sunny day.

I then came across two other photographs, one taken at the same junction and a second near the junction of Hatfield Road and Woodstock Road South.  Recently I was shown a copy of yet another photo, left, taken at the same location.

This was surely not coincidence.  Was it possible that a commercial photographer recorded local street scenes in the same way the seaside photographer did?  Could it have been a Fleetville photographer?  Unfortunately, I have copies of the original, not the original itself,  and so any photographer's printed stamp on the reverse is missing.

So here is another mystery waiting to be solved.  Does anyone have an original photo in their collection in a similar style – an individual person, couple, family, pair of shoppers – walking along a local street.  Is there a photographer's stamp on the reverse?  Is the location identifiable.  Do please email saoee@me.com if there is any information you can offer.  This may have been a regular or occasional open-air trade operating in Fleetville, Camp, or even the park.