Beryl's Mid-Century Adventures

Here are some of the results from my slide sorting and scanning efforts. These ten images are among my favorites so far.

What I'm trying to do here, as I've said before, is save significant pictures from going to the landfill, or being turned into craft projects, or otherwise disappearing. My hope is that putting them online, making them public, will allow all of us to enjoy them and help enrich our cultural record.

Above is the waterfront in Plymouth, in the area known as Plymouth Hoe, in the summer of 1980. You can't read it because of the low resolution of this blog image, but the original scan shows that the open-top bus is named the "Sir Francis Drake" and it's going to the City Center, the Mayflower Steps and along the sea front. Those little girls in the foreground remind me of the red-headed dolls that some bloggers feature in their posts.

It's exactly the kind of picture I like -- well-composed, with lots of people and evidence of the era in the cars and clothing.

"Pauline's Wedding -- Beryl" from 1966. Such a fashion statement! I have several pictures of Beryl in different outfits. She was poised and stylish enough to have been a model, and maybe she was.

"Pits at Le Mans," from 1970. Love all the old advertisements.

"Punch & Judy -- Chalfont St. Peter," from 1966.

There's no information on this slide, but it's obviously a Christmas dinner, with the crackers on the table and a cake or tart labeled "Merry Christmas." I'm guessing it's the early '60s. The man at right is holding a bottle of something called "Celebration Cream," which sounds disgusting but apparently was a type of Pedro Domecq sweet sherry popular in the mid-century. Or so Google tells me.

I think that's Beryl sitting next to the man with the bottle.

"Gill's wedding," from 1965. A veritable smorgasbord of '60s fashion. I especially like the elaborate hairstyle of the woman at rear left, and the look of despair on the face of the probably exhausted little girl.

"Devon, 1980" -- I thought the photographer's choice to put the donkey in the corner was pretty brilliant. Or maybe the donkey wandered into the picture?

"Lech, Austria" from 1965. There are quite a few slides from Lech which I think come from at least one family trip. I like the fact that eight people have managed to squeeze onto that bench, which hopefully did not give way beneath them.

There's no information on this slide, dated September 1972. I love her sunglasses and her beads and the air of happy summer holidays.

And finally, there are several pictures from this office, dated August 1971. I have no indication where it was or what type of business was being done, but I'm struck by the incredible quantities of paper and files and books. The days before computers!

As usual, my eventual goal will be to add these to an album on Flickr. As you can see, the camera attachment that allows me to photograph the slides, rather than paying to have them commercially scanned, works pretty well. Sometimes it takes me a couple of tries to get the image in the right place and correctly focused but I'm slowly figuring it out.