Friday 20 June 2014

A lost photograph and a story yet to be uncovered

I just wonder what the story is behind this picture.

It was found today under the floor boards of a house in Stalybridge.

Of course the picture might not be linked to the house.

We all have photographs of family taken elsewhere and which are reckoned important enough to be kept but which get lost over time.

And some at least along with plenty of other things find their way under the floor of most houses.

I once found a bill for a cwt of coal, a selection of buttons and those flimsy tokens the Co-op used to issue in the days before plastic loyalty cards and air mile offers.

That said I have never matched the young couple who in the summer of 1975 came across a parcel under their floor while rewiring the property.

It was light, wrapped in old newspaper which was brown and brittle with age and seemed to offer up both a mystery and the possibility of a windfall.

They left it with the local museum who promised to carefully explore this relic from the past.

And a few days later they did just that.

Judging by the date on the newspaper it most probably had been deposited under the floor in the June of 1901 but as to treasure and a life changing find that was just not going to happen.

There was no stash of jewels or documents to a long forgotten pile of money just a cheese sandwich  placed there by one of the men building the property.

Unknown to him while he was away one of his colleagues had nailed down the floor boards sealing his dinner away for 74 years.

All of which places our find into a context but I am confident that something of these four young people staring back at us will be revealed.

Bryan who found the picture thinks it dates from the 1960s, so that is a starting point.

Someone may recognise them and indeed someone may well recognise themselves which is how these things can pan out.

And there are official documents starting with electoral registers and street directories.

Then with a name can come a search through the General Registry Office for a birth or a marriage.

And then perhaps the stories can really begin.

Well we shall see.

No comments:

Post a Comment