Mums Childhood Photo – What a Find!!!
Mum never had any photos of herself as a child, I suppose it was just the way of it then! Most families didn’t own a camera and for working class families paying for a photographer was just too expensive to justify.
The earliest photos that Mum and us had ever seen of her would have been at around 18 years of age and although she gave us a clear image of what she would have looked like and the childhood that she had experienced, we never actually saw it.
When Mum went to live in the nursing home it was very sad and lonely, her life and freedom changed so much and she reminisced with us whenever we visited. Her life, her childhood and her family all became the focus of her very being and we listened and laughed and cried with her many times.
This being the focus of Mum’s amusement, I decided to try to trace some of Mum’s family tree and involved her in many conversations on my findings and where I could show her photographs of her long-lost family. Mum loved this and many stories came tumbling out of characters she remembered, family and friends.
A few years after we lost Mum, for some strange reason whilst idling browsing I did a Google search on Ebberston School which was the infant/junior school that my mum went to as a child. As Ebberston is a small village close to Thornton Dale in North Yorkshire, you can imagine the site that I found had very little in terms of content.
Wow!!! what a surprise I got!
As well as all the family names that mum used to talk about Vasey in particular, what I saw was unbelievable!
A school photo of Ebberston School, scanned from a newspaper from 1937 showing not only all of the children in the school but complete with all of their names. A photo which showed mum “Marion Nellis” Row 3 and also her brother my uncle “Jack Nellis”, mum would have been 5 years old and my uncle Jack around 18 months older.
The family was working class and didn’t have a great deal of money and most of their clothes were handed down. Mum talked to me about the clothes she used to wear and her lack of confidence and shyness as a child. The teachers picked on her and my Uncle Jack, calling them stupid and it was clear to see the rebellious look on my Uncle Jack’s face on the photo. In those days, I don’t think they took the time to bother with poorer children and those who needed a little extra help, so sadly my Uncle Jack never did learn to read (not sure about writing)
Mum on the other hand was a very intelligent woman and often surprised us with knowledge and views despite her agra and other phobias and lack of confidence confining her life to her home and family.
All of Mum’s stories came flooding back as I read through the names!
In particular Neville Vasey and his sisters. Mum told us that Neville was a very shy boy and had a childhood crush on Mum. His sisters or mum’s friends? played a prank on him, telling him mum wanted a date. Mum saw him waiting on the corner of her street for an age and always felt bad that she allowed the mean prank to go ahead.
I will always be a little sad that Mum never saw the photo of herself as a child and that I didn’t get to hear the stories of all of the names and faces that the photograph revealed. She would have loved it!
They talk about the power of magnetism, who would have believed this photo would have come to light for our family after Mum’s passing.
Thanks Mum xxx
