Album Mysteries

 It would seem to be an appropriate opportunity to bolt on one or more other searches while we may be trying to find that elusive photograph described in the monthly series titled Rescue Mission.  This is intended to identify locations in St Albans which are recalled by memory, event or by association, but for which there appears to  remain no known images.  As you may have read recently the three locations already highlighted have been the former Sear & Carter Nursery at Smallford (now Notcutts), the Former Co-operative supermarket in Fleetville (now replaced by Morrison's) and the former James Halsey Sawmills (now replaced by commercial buildings along Acrewood Way between Oaklands and Smallford).

While we are carrying out "shoebox searches" containing our own, our parents' or our grandparents' photographs, we could be carrying out other searches at the same time – which might be exciting!  Particularly, looking for those mystery images that have seemingly always formed part of our family collections but where the people or places shown are unknown to us but might have meant something to our relatives from an earlier generation or two. Here are three examples, only the first of which I have solved – solved because I am related to the young people featured above.  It was only relatively recently that I had taken photographs on top of an old building and was able to compare the graffiti scarred into the walls in c1930 with what I can see today; although today's graffiti is far more busy on the picture I had taken in 2012.   Yes, I had been, as my aunts had been, at the top of the Clock Tower in St Albans.

I found the second image far more challenging.  I guessed this photo had been taken in the early stages of World War Two, which would connect with the beginnings of my parents' photo album when they were first married in 1939.  Was this a unit undergoing military training?   My parents are likely to have known at least one of these men, but what about the building?  Was it a former school taken over for the duration of the war?  Perhaps it was a temporary barracks, or a police headquarters – note the typical light fitting above the doorway.  I suspect we would need to have retained a memory of the building even if that building has since been replaced.  It might have assisted if details had been written on the reverse – how many times have we mentioned that? – but no helpful information was found.  I suppose it could be anywhere and probably nowhere near St Albans; but you never know.

It had taken me decades to work out the location of the final image above, which appear to be a row of timber buildings with veranda ends.  It was only after I had worked with a another relative that I began to understand the career and marriage of an uncle whose engineering apprenticeship had been in central London, followed by a long-term contract for the Army at a Royal Air Force base – and  marriage to a WRAF soon after moving to the place of work (above) in Uxbridge.  A pencil marking on the reverse of the image indicated Bungalow number 141 (MQ), St Andrews Gate, RAF Uxbridge.  This is where he and his new wife were entitled to be domiciled at RAF Uxbridge from 1943.  As a civilian attachment they were entitled to accommodation in these Married Quarters, and I had been familiar with this location since a very young child but had no idea in the world where that was.

So three mystery photos, two of which I have researched some identification, and only one, the final picture) am I in a position to assist someone else, if needed, and that someone else could be you!