Scans, scans of my mother’s town*

Thank you for your variety of comments on my first scanned image of my grandfather and me. As promised, the harvestmother and I spent a productive Thursday evening eating curry and scanning more images from the family archives. All of these were from my grandmother’s collection, which my mother went through and rationalised when Grandma died in 2005. (The rationalisation was of necessity, given the volume of recent images taken by my uncle on his travels with my grandmother, in which the photographer’s goal seemed to be to record every moment of significance from a dozen different angles. One can’t fault his thoroughness.)

Many of the images I am reluctant to share in this forum, for two general reasons. One is that we have perhaps only two or three photos of many of my ancestors, and only one of some. My grandfather’s family in particular lived in what might be called genteel poverty, with great dignity in difficult circumstances. In keeping with their times, they were private people (see the latter half of this entry, following “Anyway”, for an idea of what I mean), and there seems to me a disjunction between the way the images of them are taonga in our family and the bright, harsh light of the internet.

In the case of my grandmother’s family, it is a little different. My great-great-maternal-grandparents (my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother-and-father) were a lively, sociable couple, a wine-tasting cellarman and his wife from Peckham, South London. Three of their children emigrated to New Zealand, of whom Nanna, my great-grandmother, was the first, as a Great War Bride. Here they are, these ancestors of mine, in a photo of a photograph my grandmother took while visiting her cousins in London late last century. My great-great-grandmother’s name was Clara, which was also Nanna’s middle name, although this switched to Clair at some time in her life. Clair was passed on as a middle name to my grandmother, who added an “e” when she gave it to my aunt as her middle name, following which I inherited it in that spelling as mine. Look at my great-great-grandmother’s lovely lace collar, and my great-great-grandfather’s waxed moustache. Harvestmother and I spent much time looking at the photos of my grandmother, her cousins and her aunts and uncles, at the variations of long slim face and large round face that their parents and grandparents passed on.

This, another photo-of-a-photo, is Auntie Nelly, one of Nanna, my great-grandmother’s sisters. She died young in England, in the 1930s, possibly from TB (which my great-grandmother also had as the result of a lung injury). Family photos in my great-grandmother’s collection include whimsical explanations and notes from Nelly, including the hope expressed on an image of she with her friends in their nurses’ uniforms, several holding babies, that she would one day have many babies of her own. I have a necklace of hers, though at present it needs mending. If anyone can advise me of a good mender of antique costume jewellery, I would be grateful.

Here are my grandparents, my grandfather the same featured in my earlier post, and my grandmother the niece and granddaughter of the ancestors featured above. I am guessing this would be in the late 1940s or early 1950s, in Invercargill. The wisps in front of my grandmother’s face are part of a veil attached to her hat.

Biased I may be, but I do not think it is possible to overstate the handsomeness of my grandfather. From my grandmother, I see now, I learned something like the family beauty trick, that it comes not from classically composed features or form but from kindness, and love for others, and knowing when to speak up with sincerity. If you could have heard their voices, too, which were beautiful: his medium-pitched, light and level and hers fuller and more lyrical, both convincing you of your own inherent worth.

Less secure in the world am I here at (I think) ten, photographed in my garb for the Sunday School play (in which I was, invariably, the narrator). I’m not quite sure how harvestdad, the photographer, managed to pose me for that headshot. When I saw the image at the time I noticed only the blemish on my nose and upper lip, the first days of early-onset acne that were already a source of terrific shame for me. (When I think back, adults often commented on it as well: teachers, parents, people in the community. What kind of person tells a child she’s got spots?) The harder parts of my life were yet to come, but I was enjoying school, loved reading, writing and music, and had, as you see, a chain of loving people behind me who never hesitated to be my cheerleaders, this outspoken-yet-diffident girl from the suburbs.

*Okay, the original verse is

Sands, sands of my father’s town,
Of my father’s triple sea,
(Once for the eyes and twice for dream,
Thrice for memory);

(Robin Hyde, “The Beaches” from Houses by the Sea, IV.1-4)

Tagged as: family, photos, scan