My father-in-law Robert Featherston passed away on 16 February 1992 and my own father Ian Cruickshank died eight years and one day later, on 17 February 2000. Coincidentally my father was eight years younger than my father-in-law, so Bob was 74, Dad was 75 years old when they died. It's quite a long time ago and not something I often think about, but there it is. I've blogged about both of them numerous times previously, here, here and here in relation to my Dad, and here, here and here in relation to Bob for example, so I'm not going to do any more than post a couple more photos of them that are vaguely on theme with our Sepia Saturday prompt photo this week, which shows a number of young swimmers standing on or hanging off a diving tower at a Brisbane pool.
There is a similar tower at the Eastern Beach swimming enclosure at Geelong, which also features in my last link, entitled Swimmers with Arms Folded. I don't have many photos of either Bob or Ian clad in their swimming costumes, other than the one of Bob in that post, but here he is relaxing in a river somewhere in 1947.
And here is my tall slim Dad strolling along a sandy beach in the 1960s:
RIP Bob and Ian. We'll raise a glass to them both.
Now here are a couple of family snaps of children pretending to be on diving towers, which seems to have been a popular thing to do in our back yard when the paddling pool came out on a warm summer's day. I'm standing with a friend in the first photo and then apparently defying gravity in a tussle with my brother in the second one.
And one more of my brother and sister up a different kind of ladder, the slippery dip at our local playground. Hopefully they did not try to jump off! This was in Canberra in the 1960s. Now we live in Victoria, where slippery dips are rather less imaginatively known as slides, but I'm doing my best to teach my grandchildren the 'correct' term.😀
Anyone fancy a slippery dip?
For more blogs possibly featuring towers ladders, swimmers and related subjects, please visit Sepia Saturday #406.
I've posted about sheep and goats here and here in earlier blogs, but I still have a few more farm animal photographs to use in response to the Sepia Saturday prompt for this week. This first photo is from my mother's second photo album that covers the 1940s and is captioned "The Bull and Uncle Bill". I think the bull is on the right of the picture. Uncle Bill was Daniel William Morrison (1877-1956), older brother of my mother Jean's father John Morrison. Bill married Violet and they had seven sons and three daughters. He and his family farmed in the Rai Valley, located in the Marlborough district in the northern part of the South Island of New Zealand. Bill and John's parents migrated from County Cork to new Zealand in 1875 and apparently Bill became known as Billy Ireland, although he was in fact born in New Zealand. I know Jean enjoyed going up from Christchurch to visit her country cousins and their families, but I imagine that as a city girl she would have been wary of getting too close to that bull.
The next photograph is a little later, and is labelled Holiday at Locksley Downs, Christmas 1951.
My parents were visiting Dad's newly married younger sister Nella and her husband Bert, who at the time was working as a shearer on this New Zealand sheep station. It shows my father Ian with a friendly lamb, and a sheep dog beside him keeping a watchful eye on the flock in the distance. Apart from the fact that this is a lamb rather than a goat and that Dad is not in uniform, it is not a bad match for the prompt. Dad is looking suitably rural and seems to be wearing a vest with an interesting pattern under his shirt. He passed away in 2000 but would have turned 93 this Saturday 5 August. RIP Dad, 1924-2000.
Fast forward to recent times and here are our daughter Laura and myself in 2015 with some calves that she and her husband were raising on their country property near the town of Bunyip in Gippsland Victoria, about an hour away from Melbourne where we live.
And thanks to Laura, here is a very recent photograph of our granddaughter Lucy feeding the next generation of calves, who were born on the property two or three months ago. Little Lucy loves being outside helping with farm tasks!
The prompt photograph for Sepia Saturday #287 features a group of very solemn looking students. Clearly posing for photographs was a serious business and smiling was not the done thing whenever this photograph was taken. This made me think of my parents' school photographs taken in the era of the 1930s and 1940s.
This first photograph is of my father and his 48 classmates in Standard 1 at Rangiora Borough School,NZ, 1932. My father Ian Cruickshank is lying in the front row, 5th from left. I don't know for sure if this is all one class but that was quite likely the case. The pupils would have been around the age of 7-8 at this time. The girl in the spotted dress in the 3rd row is smiling, and a couple of other children have the glimmer of a smile, including my father, but the great majority of the others are downright scowling and certainly look like they are not enjoying their school days at all. All except one have been identified by staff at the local Rangiora museum and their names are attached to the photograph, but I won't include them here, as I know at least 3 of them are still with us, now aged in their early 90s.
Ian Cruickshank aged 8
The next photograph shows a tall 16 year old Ian standing out 'above the crowd' in the centre of the back row in this Lower 5th Form class at Rangiora High School in 1940. A few of the students including Ian still have fairly serious facial expressions but more are smiling overall. That folded arms pose seems to be de riguer for the boys.
Two years later and it's a very small and seriously focussed class remaining in 6th Form, 1942. Only those wishing to go on to university would have stayed on to complete this final education year. These days Rangiora High is a big school and no doubt there is a substantial group of students in Form 6, or Year 13 as it is now known. Ian was inspired to study science by his science master at Rangiora High, and after he passed away in 2000, wife Jean endowed an annual prize at the school in his name for promising science students. Hopefully Ian would have approved of this as a suitable memorial to his life and work as a research scientist.
The Rangiora School held its 125th Jubilee reunion in 1998 and my father attended the event, although he really didn't enjoy it, as he didn't remember anyone from such a long time ago, having left the country in 1956 and having little or no contact with any of the other students since. He appears in a photograph taken at the reunion, although his name was omitted from the identification list that comes with it, which perhaps confirms that other attendees from his year did not remember him either.
In the Jubilee photograph above, the unlisted 74 year old Ian is wearing a blue shirt and cream jacket on the far right of the second row. There are 14 of his former classmates identified in the photograph, but only one other gentleman amongst them, also named Ian, standing 5th from left in the second row in 1932, and 5th from left in the back row in 1998, and he is one of the three who to my knowledge are still with us. Of course some others may not have been interested or their whereabouts may have been unknown. A number of the other people here appear younger and perhaps this group photo represents a decade of students. 900 old students in total attended the Jubilee. At least most of Ian's cohort look happier than they did in 1932! It's not too difficult to discover whether a certain individual has died in NZ, because if they were aged 80 or over, their name and date of birth then instantly appears in the historical death index. This means for example that from 2004 onwards the index will include the names of anyone born in 1924 who died at any date thereafter. On the other hand, the name of my uncle who died in 1994 aged 56 will not appear in the index until 25 November 2017, being the date that he would have turned 80. Of course this doesn't apply to those few like Ian who left the country and never returned.
Here's my mother, Jean Morrison as she then was, aged 10 at Somerfield School, Christchurch NZ in Standard 4, 1936. Little Jeannie doesn't look particularly happy here, 5th from left in the second row practically being elbowed out by neighbouring girls, and those two standing above with arms folded masculine style look particularly menacing. Always a small child, Jean was victimised by both the teacher and the other girls. Understanding that Jean was not enjoying school in these circumstances, her sympathetic mother Mona arranged for her to change schools.
Jean Morrison, 2nd row centre
Jean was much happier at Cashmere School, even if she doesn't really look that way. Here in a combined group of Standard 5-6 pupils in 1937, she is seated second from left in the front row. The row of boys with arms folded generally look to be older than those in the back row. Smiles are more common in this photograph, but they are not yet universal.
At Christchurch Girls High in 1940, being a member of the C tennis team was clearly no laughing matter, although Jean at far right looks slightly bemused all the same. She enjoyed playing tennis.
Now here is a photograph from my father-in-law Bob Featherston's collection, showing him with his fellow boy scout troop members, displaying a trophy they had won. Folded arms was the preferred pose here too, in about 1930/31. Bob joined the scouting movement in 1929 aged 12 and progressed to became a Queen's Scout. Here he is standing on the far left at the back, trying his best to look stern and serious, as are the other members of the 1st Barwon Troop.
Certificate of Admission as a scout
Robert Featherston, Queen's scout
Now for a troupe of a different kind, here is a postcard produced by W.H. Duncan,15 Anlaby Road, Hull, showing a rather unsmiling group of girls of all ages from a dance school with two of their teachers. I think the little girl in front, just right of centre, is my mother-in-law Mary Featherston, then Mary Olds. She's not the smallest member of the troupe, but almost. Mary herself is not sure, but perhaps someone can identify her from the sweet individual photograph below. She must only have been about 5 or 6 at the time, in about 1930/31, around the same time as her future husband Robert Featherston was engaged in his scouting pursuits. Mary modestly says that she was not very good at dancing, and only did it for a little while, until her father Frank Olds decided that there was too much travelling involved. Her mother Doris didn't drive, so unless the dancing school had a bus, Frank would have had to take Mary to perform at the various venues around the countryside. The family lived in Hull, where Frank worked in the Civil Service, Ministry of Labour.
Today as I write this, 8 July 2015, little Mary is 90 years young, and has had a very enjoyable time receiving cards, flowers, gifts and messages of congratulations and well wishes. She's not up to dancing these days but is still smiling and still managing to live on her own in the house that she and Bob moved into in 1959. I've mentioned Mary and included other photographs of her and Bob in previous blogs, for example here and here.
This photograph was taken today by her granddaughter Josie. Happy Birthday Mary!
For more group photographs of serious people and otherwise, just take a trip over to Sepia Saturday #287. No smiling, mind!
The casual poses of the men in the prompt photo made me think immediately of this photograph of my Uncle Ken and his NZ Air Force mates. I've featured it before so I will just refer you to what I said about it back then, in my tribute to Ken which you can find here, if you didn't already read or don't remember it. Ken is on the right, smoking not drinking, but I think there's a similarity all the same. Suffice to say, all four were killed in World War 2.
I haven't found a lot of casual photos in my albums, but the next one sort of fits the bill. The label just says 'Cass, 1945' which does not mean much to me, but I think these men could be Air Force trainees, possibly out on some exercise in the Cass area in Canterbury NZ, because they look to be wearing khaki. My lanky father Ian Cruickshank is on the far right. He and another fellow are pulling on a rope, perhaps as a way to manoeuvre a pile of wood? The others less than helpfully have their feet up on the pile, and generally look either cheerful or bemused. Conscription was in force in New Zealand during World War 2, and while Ian was at university and luckily didn't have to serve overseas, he did serve 133 days within NZ in the Air Force before being discharged in 1945. He was 21 when the war ended, a year younger than Ken would have been, had he not been killed 2 years earlier.
To even things up between the sexes, here are a couple of my mother and her friends, one at the beach and one more formal at a wedding, but still having fun. Again these photos are from the 1940s.
Jean standing above her friends, who are skylarking on the rocks and sand at Piha Beach near Auckland NZ.The girl on the right has something in her right hand, but it's not a bottle or a cigarette packet, I'm sure.
Let them eat cake! Jean is at far left, and the bride Margaret is second from right. The lady in the centre could be her mother, because she looks older and is not named in Jean's album. The other three were good friends of Jean, and I think Colleen, the lady in front on the right, is the same person who is wearing shorts in the other photo. They all look to be enjoying a happy occasion.
Here's a fun link to finish, even if it is an advertisement for Irish whiskey : http://youtu.be/h81oiF7VIOw Pretty short and sweet from me this week, but for more poses, casual or otherwise from other Sepians, just click here.
Although not a great gardener myself, I do come from good gardening stock and have found a few photographs to prove it. The first one shows my great grandfather Thomas Byles and his daughter Myrtle Cruickshank, displaying their abundant garden produce in the late 1940s. Thomas seems to have been an interesting character. I've related his story in an earlier blog which you can check out here.. I believe he lived with Myrtle and her husband Oliver Cruickshank in his later years, so of course Oliver probably had a hand in this garden too. Myrtle must have been flat out making pumpkin soup or whatever with all that lot, or perhaps she sold or gave away a fair amount to friends and neighbours.
Thomas died in 1951 aged 88. Sad to say that despite all those healthy vegetables, Myrtle only survived her father by eight years, passing away at 65 from bowel or stomach cancer in 1959.
The next photo taken in 1958 shows Myrtle's son Ian and granddaughter Joanna admiring the very tall sunflower that I'd apparently grown at our Canberra home in about 1958. We can't see the colour of the sunflower so you'll just have to imagine it. I assume it was yellow but it might not have been (see below). Ian didn't see his mother again after we left NZ in 1956.
Jack and the beanstalk?
Ian's life's work was that of a scientist, specialising in research into plant diseases, and he was also a keen vegetable and fruit tree grower himself, when he wasn't off at work experimenting in his lab. Those experiments often called for late night lab visits, in order to give his numerous trays of pea specimens another drop each of the specially formulated test solution and graph the results.
Ian's wife Jean in the well-tended garden of our home in O'Connor Canberra, c. 1973. I think those flowers are chrysanthemums, not sunflowers.
Jean's father Jack Morrison also loved gardening. I've previously featured photos of both Jack and Oliver Cruickshank weeding. Here's Jack sitting relaxing for a minute or two on a seat amongst his flowering shrubs, in February 1965, according to this helpfully dated snap.
and in the early 1970s, he's working away in his Christchurch garden with the help of two young grandchildren. Their father Peter was Jack's youngest son.
In 1976 we visited my husband's relatives on their property called Yew Tree Farm, near Hereford in England. Here are his uncle Cyril and grandmother Doris Olds {nee Newth) at work in the family apple orchard. We helped them to fill sacks with windfall apples, that would then be collected by Bulmers and made into scrumpy. The trees are still there but these days they don't really produce very much fruit.
Doris's beautiful garden that you can catch glimpses of below provided an attractive park-like setting for the very English garden party celebration of her 100th birthday in 2003, which we were lucky enough to be able to attend. Here's Doris and her #100 balloon, with great granddaughter Claire and yours truly. The shawl over Doris's shoulders was our present to her, made by yours truly, of Tunisian crochet. I made several shawls around that time but have since totally forgotten how to do it! Claire's new baby Isabelle whom we are presently visiting in London is Doris's first great great grandchild. I'm sure Doris would have loved to meet her.
Doris's park-like garden as it is today, maintained by her son Cyril
We went back to NZ on holiday last year, and I took a couple of shots of the impressive greenhouse and garden cultivated by Cruickshank descendant Helen and her husband Frank at their farm in the South Island. Helen told me that she and her husband planted out over sixty tomato plants last summer, and as a result had large quantities of tomatoes to turn into sauce, pickles and chutney for family, friends and her church stall, plus plenty of other vegetables as well.
My sister Louisa has definitely inherited the family green thumb from her father Ian, grandparents Oliver, Myrtle and Jack, and great grandfather Thomas. Here's a collage of her photos, showing scenes of bountiful produce at the community garden near Kerikeri in the far north of NZ, of which she is a member.
In return for a morning's work each week, everyone gets a substantial weekly box of vegetables to take home.
Louisa's home garden is pretty impressive too. It probably helps that she works at a garden centre several days a week. Here are a just a few shots of it, including both red and yellow sunflowers loved by the bumblebees, and my daughter Laura admiring one of them on a visit from Australia. Louisa no doubt harvests the sunflower seeds. Beautiful Monarch butterflies are regular visitors to the swan plants in her garden, as seen below.
I'll finish with an appropriate garden song from the late great Pete Seeger:
Now flit on over to Sepia Saturday 224 for more Sepian takes on this week's gardening theme.
Best wishes for a very happy Easter from the bilbies in my autumnal garden. Bilbies look a little like bunnies, but are a native Australian marsupial threatened with extinction, unlike rabbits that can quickly take over the countryside in plaque proportions, and in the process compete with the bilbie for food and habitat. For a little information about Bilbies and the campaign to 'ban the Easter Bunny', click here or alternatively go to http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2014/04/14/3871404.htm?WT.mc_id=Innovation_News-Environment%7CEasterBunny,EasterSchmunny_FBP%7Cabc
This bilbie toy and his chocolate bilbie friends have travelled over to England with us, and hopefully are enjoying some early spring weather.
