Sepia Saturday 100 Not Out!

Sepia Saturday began for me exactly a year ago. It all began with Amy  here

Amy

As I had very few sepia photos it wasn’t long before I became a ‘themer’ and a lot of fun I’ve had along the way to SS 100.

‘100’ has not been as easy as I thought it would be. I’ve almost had a writer’s block. Then I remember that in 2008 to overcome this affliction I joined a site www.100words.com on which the challenge was to write a post each day of the month in exactly 100 words – no more, no less.

To my surprise my entry for 16 June was featured on the site.

June 16, 2008

BY Samwin

I sat in the garden this afternoon watching the sprinkler going round and round. A buzzing sound caught my attention; it sounded like a bee. Finally I located the bee on the small pink lavender bush set this year in a terracotta pot on the patio. Some of the lavender’s forty flower heads are fully open revealing the petals, on others only tips of the unopened petals may be seen. The bee visited each in turn, its golden thorax contrasting with the pink flowers. On each back leg it had an orange pod, full of the nectar it had collected.

Samwin you’ve seen before; named after Sam my daughter’s Golden Labrador, Samin is the headcover for my driver (golf club)

Samwin

Many of you are into tracing your family tree so I thought I’d make a start with the 1911 census of England. I had to cheat a big and go to the previous census in1901 to find the family of my grandfather and grandmother. George Arthur Scotney (29), Saddler and Harness Maker and his wife Sarah (32) had three sons – Henry C S (5), Charles W A (3) [My father] and Douglas L P (1) – at that time. I have never heard of Douglas before but I do know that later there were two other sons and two daughters(the uncles and aunts that I knew in addition to Henry, known to me as Stan)

Unfortunately I have no photos of any of them. But now I know that my elder brother was named after our grandfather.

George Arthur Scotney

You have seen a read about Arthur before in Sepia Saturday Posts My Brother's War.and War Photos

The census results confirmed to me that my grandparents were living at High Street, Ketton.

It so happens that on 6 June 2008 I wrote on the 100words.com site

“I was born in a house made of stone, with a roof of Collyweston slate. The house had no name although it was eventually given the number 100 on the High Street in a village in Rutland. Rutland was the smallest of the counties in England at that time.

The village school, for children up to age 11, was just across the road. A village shop was a short distance up the road. When my brother went to war I had pennies with which to buy a gobstopper each day. He had gone to stick a bayonet up Hitler’s backside.”

High Street,Ketton

The postal address for this house where I was born is 100 High Street. The people who live there now have put up a name plate and called it Sadler's Cottage so my grandfather's trade is commemorated.

Stocks Hill, High Street, Ketton

The shop to the left of the car is where I bought the gobstoppers with the money left for me by my brother. The monument in the centre was erected to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

Sepia Saturday was launched by Alan Burnett and Kat Mortensen in 2009, Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don't have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images.
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It has reached the grand old 'age' of 100. My thanks to Alan and Kat for their marvellous idea to which I am proud to contribute. Here's to the next 100.

Check out other contibutions to SS100 here. 

Eating Vegetables

Carmi set us a theme this week that I thought I would be unable to match until I remembered that Yarm, voted by the BBC to have the best High Street in England a few years back, had a greengrocer's shop. Mind you it now has to compete with three supermarkets all within easy reach.

The shopkeeper was most surprised when I asked his permission to take photos inside his shop. So take your pick - there's no chance take you cannot meet the recommended five a day if you buy your vegetables here.

Greengrocer's shelves

Fancy that bag of Brussel Sprouts?

A further selection

I f none of these take your fancy please feel free to check out others at Eat your veggies!

Ketton

A-Z Challenge – ‘K’

The house of grey stone and roof of Collyweston slate still retains its old character in the Rutland village of Ketton.

 This is the house in which I was born

I remember it in the 1940s and 1950s when the front had a grey wooden fence, a garden gate and a double gate across the drive at the left. It was fun to swing over them from one side to the other.

On either side of a concrete path to the front door were lawns each with diamond-shaped flower beds in their centre. At nine or ten, I had to cut the edges and woe betide me if I snipped off any flowers. They were in more danger from flailing sticks used to swat bumble bees attracted by the asters.

A rambling rose covered the head-high, wire fence between the lawn and drive. A small gate from the drive near the house opened onto a stone path crossing the front to the lawns and flower beds. Right of the house was a short path from the pavement into the garden of the landlord; he kept a beady eye on us especially as our Airedale, Punch, had killed his cat when it trespassed on ‘his’ lawn.

The tree at the left is an apple tree that I used to climb as a boy.

 The drive up the left continued to the back boundary fence and contained a gate through which you could enter a stonemason’s yard – but only if he wasn’t there; he wasn’t keen on kids pinching his apples and plums from trees which were covered in the dust from the monuments and gravestones he made.

Beyond the back of the house on the right were outhouses with double doors used as garages for the cars of the landlord’s spinster daughters. Between the garages and the house were two smaller outhouses - one for Dad’s tools where the dog had its kennel, and one for coal, the fuel that provided heating and hot water. Behind the coal house was the toilet. No plumbing or drainage; it was equipped with a big wooden seat, and beneath the hole, an open bucket emptied once a week; unheated and with very little light, it wasn’t a nice place at night.

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Now the wooden fences have gone to be replaced by stonewalls. There are no gates. A nameplate proclaims it to be ‘Saddlers Cottage’. My father’s family were saddlers before the motorcar came along.

 The house in a shot along the High Street

[I have taken the text for this from a longer article about the house in which I was born.]