A long gap

 This is info about Saturday. To contact Cheryl at 5 Pilot Square, to book a place on the guided walk you can email her c.d.croydon@abdn.ac.uk

Fresh Blood

We've had a good result today, Janet Jongebloed has these pix of Jeannie Mainnie with her neice, Susan Watson - Mrs MacCallum - and some of her family, which I used before. There are two women whose names Janet couldn't quite make out from the back of the photo and a man who isn't named. I sent the pix to Sonya, Ina McCallum's granddaughter, via Donna, who is her best friend - just like their great grandmas were.

 

Sonya said she had the same picture in front of her and was just going to scan it! Between us -and with the help of Sonya's mother Sandra, we have worked out the sisters with white collars are Peg Cowper - Allison Cowper's great auntie - and, from the caption on the back, her sister Mary who was home from Australia with her daughter, the blonde girl with the doll. Update - not Australia, but South Africa

I didn't know who the man was but Sonya knew him fine. she said, "He is Annie and Susan's dad - Alexander Duncan Watson b12 Oct 1864 - d 26 Sept 1949 (my mum used to call him 'Daydee') He lived at 8 Pilot Sq."  Susie McCallum is wearing the jumber and Ena has the pigtails. The girl with the whiite blouse and dark bow is described as 'a stranger' obviously somebody not related or worth telling Auntie Annie about. We don't know who sent the photo to America, but she calls JM 'Granny' - not 'Mother' as in a previous picture and reminds Auntie Annie that Granny is wearing the frock she (Annie) had sent her.

 

If they all look relatively recent, here's one that doesn't! Susan again, but with Susie as a baby, Rosie and Alex and her hat, which deserves a mention, taken around 1910, Sonya thinks.

Here's another old fashioned, formal looking one of both our family's Main cousins - Maggie, Elsie, Ina and Alex Main. 

Now a completely different set of children - on the beach. Sonya's grandma, Ina is the tall one on the right, Sonya thinks it must have been around 1924, juding by the age of Ina.Does anybody recognise any of them? 

And now something to gladden a lot of hearts, I am sure. Sandra Lyon babysitting on the beach. She looks lovely. The bald baby, with unbabylike bags under his eyes - oh, maybe they are dimples - can often be seen on the beach today, still looking much the same, if taller, and better able to walk unaided. This picture brings our two branches of the same family back together again.

Thanks Sonya for your quick scanning work and all your dates.

Auntie Elsie

 Today's photos are of Auntie Elsie; her granddaughter, Donna's daughter, Charley Gavin has scanned  some of Elsie's pix so I've downoloaded some.

Elsie in 1926, but who is holding her?

Inscribed to someone, but we can't read the name.

Wearing the wings of the New Zealand Air Force. 

We didn't ask why and she didn't say.

In the first Old Photos post, I said Elsie looked like Carol's daughter, Jean Gray, here's one of Jean so you can judge for yourself. I think we could have found a better likeness if I'd looked harder.

and here's Elsie at the Harbour Dance in 1951

and this is who she was dancing with, and they lived happily ever after.

Elsie with sisters; today, one unnamed person can't pick out her own grandma from the bevy of beauties! but she recognised her Uncle Stan.

 

 Next thing, a Happy Family with Leslie and Donna (despite the fact that Charlie walked down Union Street pioneering the matching handbag, message bag and sports jacket look)  

In the space of a day, this picture has attracted a considerable following on Facebook.

 Elsie and Charlie on a cruise in 1985

 In Norway, with Donna and Gregg. Donna could have covered Gregg's whole head with her fringe and she'd have been able to see where she was going.

 Christmas 2006, not a fairy or even an angel, despite the wings, but Charley, dropped in to see her Grandma..These aren't RAF wings, though, these look natural; I think they sprout when you drink the magic blue potion that Charley has in the bottle.

Star photo!

Best photo ever - Auntie Annie - is that Granda behind her? - Grandma's Father and Mother, Jeannie Mainnie, Auntie Elsie looking over the table, Grandma, looking awful like Bette at the end, Tommy Esson at the front. No idea who the man behind Great Granda is.

Would this be in the room at No 1? There seems to be a window reflected in the mirror behind them.
You can leave a comment by clicking 'comments' below this and writing in the box.
Would this be taken just before Auntie Annie went to America, because she leaving?
There is a picture of her labelled Immigrant, 1926. I think Auntie Elsie was born November 1925.
If it is Granda in the shadow, he is wearing a collar and tie, maybe he would have thought it was the right thing to do if he was getting his picture taken. Maybe it is not him.

I absolutely love this picture.

Old Family Photographs

My fourth? cousin - second cousin twice removed? Janet Jongebloed in America has kindly scanned some old family photographs and made the images available. Janet is the daughter of Bruce, Jean Thomson's eldest son.

Here are some that may be of interest.

 The Sisters looking very summery, with their husbands, but whose wedding was it?

 Carol's birthday

A run in a bus - I don't recognise the man on the left, or the couple in front of the door of the bus.

"Fittie Picnic" is written on the back of this one, but maybe that's a joke, because it is such a big family - going somewhere? or saying "Cheerio" to Auntie Annie? I think these are David, Donald and Diane Torr at the front with that lovely girl in the bonnet and her brother standing in front of Robert and William Lamb.

Auntie Elsie looks like our Jean Gray - on Jean's Facebook page, Caroline has writtten that Jean looks like Auntie Elsie and Mother taken at Butlins.

Uncle Bert, father of Beattie, Thelma, Jeannie and Tommy Esson, with his spaniels. This pic might have been taken by P&J or something - it has Aberdeen printed on the back.

Is this Thelma with her father's dogs? Note the photographer's use of tarpaulin to tidy the background.

 Granda and Grandma outside No1 - you can just see number 42 at the door, which must have been the number counted from Pocra Quay.

Grandma, Tibbie and their mother in Finzean - this is probably my favourite.

The pic says Elsie is turning round and Thelma is crying, Auntie Annie would have recognised her sisters - and mother in the middle? (Grandma and Auntie Maggie) I wonder where this was taken, any ideas? 

Similar, but the mamas have swapped places. Who is the lady with the baby behind Grandma - is it a McKessock?and the two ladies at the back? I think this is in Finzean. Who is the little dark haired girl in front? and the boys? she reminds me of somebody we all know and love, who has grown up now.

A picnic on a hill with a lighthouse in the background. Is that Annie Watson and one of her sisters on the right - could that be Grandma with a scratch over her face, behind Annie. I think the girl in front of Annie loks like Jean Baxter, but obviously couldn't be her, by age - would it be a Baxter, or Lizzie? Is the first on on the left Auntie Maggie, this person is in other photos, but Maggie looks like Beatrice in the pix. Auntie Annie and Uncle Bert are in the middle, on the far side of the tablecloth.

 Update - since I've gone through so many pix I can recognise some more faces now and Sonya knows all the Watsons and McCallums, going by the age of Ina McCallum, b 1913, it might be around 1922.   So we now have - l to r - girl w. black socks - Ina McCallum, Auntie Maggie w. Jeannie Esson, Susan (Watson) McCallum w. Ena, Jean (Main) Walker w. Tommy Esson?, boy, Susie McCallum, lady , possibly Peggy Cowper but not sure, man, boy, woman w little girl, Uncle Bert, Auntie Anne, Bella Watson, Thom (Watson) Stephen, Grandma (Elsie Walker), Annie Watson, woman , boy.

 

Grandma on the beach with Auntie Elsie, Auntie Annie at the other end. Who is the second one with the baby? The third one looks young, she looks like Carol, could it be Auntie Maggie, and would that be Tommy Esson in front? - I've looked at her with the zoom and she looks like Betty Knight so I think it must be Tibbie. Who is walking the crying? baby down the sand? There are the remains of a wreck behind them.

 Lizzie and David Baxter, I wondered, but Auntie Isobel says, 'No',

 

 Tibbie and Lizzie in front of the monument - not sure of their clicks, though - Tibbie's could be Sandy; what about Lizzzie's?

 This one of Auntie Annie is labelled "Immigrant, 1926"

I think, now, that the rest of these were taken in America, their clothes are much smarter

 

I'll do some more when I have time, you can leave a comment if you recognise anybody in the pix. Thanks again to Janet for scanning them.

Going to my camp

Looking North at my car parked on the Drove Road

 

The farm on the brae is Tillycroy, where my nephew Stuart is going to stay until he has built his house.

Looking South from the car to Clochnaben and to where we first stayed in Finzean, at Powlair. 

Turning into the wood and looking back to the car 

Going  through the wood

Looking back, South again

 

The burn that goes through the wood goes under the bridge  

and out on the other side

and runs into the Feugh

and then, what was, the cottage we stayed in

There was only the left hand side then, with a wooden porch where the middle window is now.

Looking back, West, the road towards the cottage

and actually at the cottage

Looking East, to the left is, what was, the bothy I had

a closer view

and the road ahead

and to the right is the caravan, seen from beyond it, looking back (so it's on the left).

Then going into my camp - curtains and cushions airing on bushes and the fire on extreme left 

Airing cushions at the caravan and looking back the way you came in

looking up to the farmhouse at Ennochie

Started cutting the grass!

The Feugh visible from the near the fire

The grass cut - looking East, the way you would come in in a vehicle

The grass cut, curtains airing on a line and on bushes and the fire

The Feugh where the tractor crosses to the hill

looking acros the Feugh to Clochnaben

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP OF THE CAIRN O' MOUNT

generally South

 

  

 

looking East to the sea