Mona and her beloved cat

This week's prompt photograph shows a girl, a dog and a lady who could perhaps be her mother or her grandmother.

We've had pets as a topic previously and I posted the photo below then, but I feel it's worthwhile showing it again because it is a good match, despite the animal being a cat rather than a dog and there being no lady with the girl in my photograph, who is my grandmother Mona Forbes. She was 9 years old so the photograph must have been taken around 1906. It's the only photograph I have of her as a child. Mona was in her mid-fifties by the time I was born, and I did not know her very well because we left the country when I was 3 and she died before I was 20. I really wish Mona's mother Jane Isabella had been standing there with her as in the prompt photograph, as I have very few photographs of her either, and none of her as a young woman.

I mentioned in my post last week that Mona attended the School of Art in Christchurch New Zealand but did not include any of examples of her work, so linking back to that theme, here is a photo of a drawing Mona did whilst a student at the school in 1913.

 It would be nice to think that the subject might have been Mona's older brother John Middleton Forbes, aka Jack, in contemplative mode, before he embarked for service with the Royal Engineers Unit of the NZ Expeditionary Force in 1914, but I cannot be sure of that. It may simply have been a drawing from a life model posing at the art school. I've found a couple of photographs on the Christchurch City Libraries web site, showing art classes taking place at the school in 1910, just a few years before Mona studied there. The class looks to be quite crowded, and according to the web site the school had an enrolment of some 400 students.

http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/heritage/photos/disc9/IMG0024.asp

http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/heritage/photos/disc9/img0025.asp

Mona did not continue with her art because following her marriage to John Morrison in 1921 she became very busy looking after their six children, but son Graeme inherited Mona's artistic talent and went on to become a commercial artist. It was also Graeme who was responsible for bringing home various stray animals that the family adopted as pets, even including an ex-racehorse at one stage, which famously broke free and headed straight for familiar ground at the nearby Addington racecourse.


For more blogs on various topics that possibly include children, pets, ladies, fancy hats and perhaps even fences, visit Sepia Saturday #357

On Yer Bike!

The theme for October is "From Here to There", and the prompt photograph shows a group of lady cyclists out for a ride. My first photograph shows my Aunty Pat and her brother Ken 'riding tandem' on their tricycle in about 1925. They must have been aged around 4 and 2 respectively. Young Ken had a lovely head of hair back then! Both Pat and Ken have featured in my blog a number of times, in particular here and here, but in this photograph they are simply young and innocent children having fun together on their tricycle.  

That tricycle was to last through four more children in the Morrison family. Below is young Derek taking his turn, followed  a few years later by Graeme and Peter, on this occasion riding it in the snow. I don't have a photo of my mother riding it, but I'm sure she would have also had her turn.

Uncle Peter above was exactly fifteen years older than me, as I was born on his fifteenth birthday. Here I am getting a dink from my Dad on the handlebars of his bike in Cambridge England in 1954, where bikes were and still are a very popular mode of transport. No child seats or safety helmets back then, but somehow most of us survived.

Back in Christchurch NZ as a 3 year old I regularly rode my smart 3 wheeler between home and my grandparents' house, Uncle Peter was still living there with his parents, but the old family tricycle beloved by him and his siblings had probably been given away by this stage.

I'll finish with a photograph of a real tandem bike. I've ridden tandem a couple of times and I can't say I enjoyed the feeling of not being in control, but here is Sergeant Pilot Bob Featherston, looking relaxed and carefree as he rides on the front of a tandem bike with a similarly uniformed friend in Bournemouth, early in World War 2. Bob had enlisted with the RAAF and was serving with the RAF Bomber Command. It cannot have been very long after this ride that the Lancaster of which he was in charge was shot down during a raid on Berlin. Bob was promoted to Flight Lieutenant whilst imprisoned in Stalag V111B, in Lamsdorf, Poland, where he was interned under harsh conditions for over two years, from January 1943 until the end of the War. I'm glad he was able to have some fun beforehand. 

The photograph comes from my late father-in-law Bob Featherston's collection of negatives. Another friend must have taken the shot for him.

For more blogs on this month's theme, just hitch a ride, any way you can, across to Sepia Saturday #344.

Itinerant artists and street perfomers I have known

I have no photos of monkeys, itinerant or otherwise, and was almost not going to post this week, but then the concept of itinerant workers made me think of my uncle Graeme Morrison and another more distant relative, Jon Petrie,  both of whom were accomplished artists who painted for their living at certain times.  

Jon Petrie was a son of Frank Petrie and grandson of Jessie Petrie, who was the sister of my great grandfather Charles Murray Cruickshank.  I've written about Jessie previously. Jon worked in various parts of the world as a photographer and columnist, but he was also a mural painter, and I understand that he would not infrequently offer to paint something for the hotel or place he was visiting in return for his accommodation.  Here is an example of one of his works, which was painted in situ at the Reef Lodge, Sigatoka, Fiji. This establishment doesn't appear to exist any more, so presumably neither does the mural.

Here's another of his paintings, this time of boats somewhere. Boat owners would no doubt also be interested in a painting of their prized possessions, but this may or may not have been painted for that reason.

Below is a snap of my Uncle Graeme's studio, which he built in the back garden of his parents' family home in Christchurch New Zealand, c. 1951. That may be Graeme sitting on the step, together with his mother Mona and his sisters Pat and Jean.

The caption to this newspaper clipping describes how Graeme would pay his way when travelling in the USA, by painting houses and then offering to sell them to the owners. I'm not sure if he painted them first and then asked the owners if they would like to buy them, or if he painted on commission, but it could have worked both ways. His mother noted at the top of the clipping that they got a great surprise to find the photo in their local Christchurch paper, the Star, one night in the late 1950s.

Graeme and his wife Ann settled in California but at one stage in the 1970s or 1980s  they decided to return to NZ. To do this Graeme held a garage sale to get rid of his remaining artwork, so my mother who happened to be visiting them at the time bought the following three paintings and drawings.  They subsequently returned to California, where Graeme passed away in 1988. Consquently his family have very few paintings, but hopefully some of his work still graces the walls of some attractive Californian homes.

Street performers in the family

Our son Kim taught himself to juggle at age 10 and it wasn't long before he became quite skilled at juggling balls (5/6), clubs, rings, knives, fire torches etc. His older sister Claire picked up the balls soon after, and little sister Laura did likewise a few years later. Our other son Strahan took a while longer but now he too can juggle 3 balls quite well. It's very good for coordination and even I could do the basic juggle at one stage. So here for your entertainment are a few collages of family juggling shots from the 1990s in various guises and locations. Kim sometimes earnt himself pocket money by busking at Circular Quay on Sydney Harbour. He and Claire joined a juggling club in the city where they learnt club passing, numbers and all sorts of complicated juggling tricks.

Unicycling seems to go with juggling, so that was the next skill to be mastered, and then came unicycle hockey, which looks chaotic but is fun to play and to watch.

We even attended a week long juggling convention in Las Vegas in January 1996 while on holiday there (photos on left of 3rd collage). Some of the artists who performed nightly at the hotels would come and join in with the amateurs after they finished their acts each night. The three centre shots were taken at Darling Harbour in Sydney, where Claire and her brother earnt money teaching juggling to passers-by at a juggling booth during a couple of school holidays. Top right is a line-up with cousins in Paihia NZ, although only two of the kids could actually juggle at this stage, but the others had fun trying! Kim showed his school mates how to unicycle and Claire had a few jobs as a juggling clown at children's parties. These days Laura is a primary school teacher, and she occasionally brings out the unicycle and balls to give the kids a demonstration, but otherwise the clubs, knives, rings, diabolo and unicycles are here in the shed or attic, just waiting for the next generation to come along and have a go, whenever the time is right.

Performing and busking, 1996. B&W photos taken and developed by yours truly.

Now for more performers, artists, monkeys and other entertaining takes of all kinds on the topic this week , just click here.

                          ps. I'm not sure that moneys can really juggle, but here is one that makes a pretty good attempt!  

And finally, as a couple of people have expressed an interest in my Uncle Graeme's shed painting, which has been hanging on my wall ever since my mother gave it to me in the 1980s, here is another one that you might also like, which my brother owns. Neither are for sale, sorry to say. I understand that Graeme's children don't have any of their father's work, so perhaps I will leave mine to one of them.