Kicking your heels on a wall - Sepia Saturday

This week's prompt with a damaged picture

made me look for photographs that have been hidden away for years.

During WWII a young girl had her photo taken. This had ghostly stripes where light had crept in.

After the war was over our little girl appears again on another shot that we can date to:

Pat, Mary and Margaret - 1947

But the meaning of the pencil numbers remains a mystery. Which one is our little blond.

That's for you to work out

She remembers where the picture was taken in Broad Street, Stamford, Lincolnshire - opposite the Central Cinema (definitely not the one known locally as the 'Flea Pit.'

The wall, she says, belonged to this old building,

Browne's Hospital
(by Andy 2/11/2011 - CC BY-NC-ND-2.0)

The hospital was founded in in 1475 by wealthy wool merchant, William Browne, to provide a home and a house of prayer for 12 poor men and 2 poor women.

But there's no sign of the wall the girls were kicking their heels against in that shot or in one from a different angle.

Browne's Hospital
(By Richard Croft - ex geograph.org,uk - CC BY-SA 2.0)

The hospital or Bedehouse was richly endowed with property and agricultural land in the vicinity. A bedesman or beadesman, a name derived from the beads of the rosary, was the title given to the poor men, 

Some of the hospital's funds were appropriated by Act of Parliament in in 1871 for the foundation of Stamford High School (where our blond girl was to become a pupil, much later of course) and for the further endowment of Stamford School (where a Sepians was to be educated in the 1940s/1950s)

The blond girl always insisted that the wall in the photo existed and was part of Browne's Hospital.

Now I know it's dangerous to doubt the word of a lady of any age. Francis Firth's photograph of Stamford's Browne's Hospital came to my aid. Copyright does not let me reproduce it.

Please look at the photo displayed by the link. It's taken in 1922 and there on the left is the illusive wall topped by steel railings. In 1947 the railings were no longer there as their metal had been required for the war effort in 1940-1945.

Study Firth's photo a little more and you will see behind the railings a stone urn which matches that in the top right of the picture of the three girls kicking their heels against the wall.

The lady's case is proved. Perhaps this is just as well because she is my wife of 57 years. I couldn't possibly contradict her!

For more stories derived from 'damage' pictures check out Sepia-Saturday-278.

All The World's A Stage - Sepia Saturday

Let me introduce you to the 'Dramatis Personæ' in my school pictures this week.

Stage set: Cromwell Castle, Tresco, Isles of Scilly

All you have to do to play the game is to locate these three actors in the photographs of their schools.

Yaddlethorpe Primary School (1960s)

Sorry, but you are not to be given any clues other than that there is a certain logic in how the photos have been posted.

Conyers School, Yarm

The final group of youngsters comes from Yarm also.

Yarm Primary School (1970s)

For those concerned with posture here's a group of teachers showing how ankles should be crossed.

Stamford High School staff (1950s)

To see what prompted my choice and others' interpretations you should check out Sepia Saturday 97

A Sporting Sepia Saturday

I can't comment sensibly on ladies hockey other than to say their stick work was better than the men. However I still bear the scars from playing mixed hockey during the school holidays.

My first picture shows Stamford School 1st XI from 1954. I'm at the left end of the front row at the tender age of 17.

The white 'blob' above the doorway behind the third and fourth player is the 'Old Man' gargoyle on the chapel at the school. All new boys were lifted up in turn to kiss this at an initiation ceremony. I understand that this practice has been discontinued now.

I can remember everyone's surname in the photograph but am struggling to remember all the christian names. Must be old age!

The same applies to the photo below of the United College team at St Andrews University for 1955-56.

 You should be able to recognise me in this.

The nearest I can get to a ladies team is to show the tennis team from Stamford High School for1953 some of whom played in those mixed hockey games in the holidays. (We weren't meant to mix in term time.) 

The girl third from the right in the back row became my wife in 1958.

More sporting action at: Sepia Saturday 57