Captured British seamen aboard German raider 'Pinguin'. 1940.

One of my colleagues at work, Roy Johnson, knows that I collect old photos and just mentioned in passing "Oh, I have a photo of my father on board the German raider that sank his ship and captured him during the war". I had to see this! Thanks Roy for letting me use these scans. Roy's father, Albert, was a member of the crew of the Port Wellington, which was attacked by the German auxiliary cruiser (hilfskreuzer) 'Pinguin' on 30th November 1940. Most of the crew and seven female passengers were captured. Here we see them all on the deck of the Pinguin. The first officer of the Pinguin was kind enough to go back on board the Port Wellington before she was scuttled to retrieve clothes for the women. The Pinguin herself was sunk by the Royal Navy the following year. Below is Albert in 'Marlag und Milag Nord' POW camp in Germany. That's him on the front row at the far right.

Christmas 1948. Tea and cake.

Two cakes! That was a luxury in England during those rationing years. I find this image quite endearing. Maybe it's those rose-tinted retrospective spectacles. I showed this one to my parents and it  had quite the opposite effect on them. It reminded them of hard times in the 1940s when they were children growing up in bombed-out industrial cities. No romance in it for them!

England. 1940.

An RAF fighter pilot at rest. 1940.

One of my work colleagues lent me these old WW2 press photographs he picked up at a sale a few years ago.



"Thrusting into sand bags with bayonets are Dutch naval cadets, dressed in British battle dress for Home Guard duty. The men are continuing their training here after escaping from the famous naval college of Den Helder after Holland was overrun by Nazis. They will later join Dutch warships fighting with Britain. The college is run entirely by Dutch personnel." 1940.



The Duke of Gloucester meets New Zealand Maori soldiers. 1940.

"Me with my servant Ramazan" 20th Oct 1943.

India during the war.

The curious incident of the Tate & Lyle lorry. 1940s.

The flea market trader thought this was a scene of bomb disposal during WW2. Looking closer I don't think that is the case. This Tate & Lyle Foden lorry appears to have lost its trailer and a curious crowd has assembled to watch the attempt to reconnect the two halves. The location is not identified, but it looks like suburban London.

Corner of Beaconsfield and Springfield Road, Brighton. 1940s.

I find many of my photos in Brighton, yet very few that were actually taken there, so this one makes a pleasant change. An unusually snowy Brighton, maybe during the infamous hard winter of 1946-7.


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Typing School. 1946.

A Southern Railways official photograph of the typing school at "Room 44, London Bridge" on 14th November 1946.

Allies! British, American and Soviet officers walking together. Weimar, Germany.

A nice illustration of that short period of optimism before the Cold War began. I identified the city by googling clock towers all over Bohemia, Germany and Austria until I found this one. See a modern view here.

Bern, Switzerland. Circa 1940.

Engehaldenstrasse, Bern, Switzerland. Lorraineviadukt under construction. Circa 1940.


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Drag act. 1940s.

I found this fun one inside a sideboard in a second-hand furniture shop. This message is on the back:

Eddie, I told you one day I would become a 'pin-up' girl. Look at this and tell me, am I in the running?!!! Richard (Richard Gilbert)

I was wondering if this could be an early photo of Dick Emery, whose middle name was Gilbert.

Cheers! 1940s Britain and France compared.

Not such a great difference between us.


Champagne party. June 1942. France.

Great snow! Toboganning on 27th January 1945.

Repeated on the back of all three of these is the date and the words "great snow". Somebody has pointed out that this was the day the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz. There was snow there too, but not so much jollity.

Minnesota, USA. 1940s.

A set of three flea market photos of Minneapolis (Foshay Tower, above) and St Paul. Two men appear in Royal Air Force uniforms. They could be British or Canadians. Notations on the backs of the photos draw attention to the tall buildings. I think they were sent to someone in England to show them American skyscraper architecture.

Muree, Punjab, British India (Pakistan) 13th August 1945.

An atmospheric shot of Murree, a hill station, summer resort and popular place of residence for British administrators seeking relief from the heat.

Polyfoto!

This handsome wartime Royal Air Force man I found in a flea market was my introduction to the Polyfoto process, which was quite popular in 1930s and 40s Britain. Polyfotos were offered in department stores. The subject would sit in front of a camera that would take 48 photographs in rapid sequence. These were presented to the customer in a single sheet of numbered passport size photos. See this website for a wonderful animated sequence that one film maker has made out of polyfotos of his parents. The customer could order enlarged versions of their favourite shot. More often they cut the sheet into pieces, like this one. I have created a Flickr group for Polyfotos if you'd like to see more.

This chap attracted over 1000 views from the RAF Facebook page and several people currently in the service expressed a desire to find out who he was. No luck yet though. It looks like he was an NCO posing in a borrowed officer's cap for a laugh. I have found two other (non-Polyfoto) shots of him with his wife. Possibly he didn't survive WW2.

Dandy the pony. 1946.

This is the sort of thing that makes flea market photo hunting such a delight. Small, crude prints which nevertheless perfectly preserve a moment.

Burgess Hill, West Sussex. 1940-1941.

A carefully dated set depicting cheerful uniformed men posing with civilian women in and around the town of Burgess Hill. I had assumed these are local Home Guard but it has been suggested to me that some of the insignia visible may belong to the 38th Welsh Infantry division, which served a territorial role in southern England during WW2, or maybe the Pioneer Corps. (Above) Relaxing in the hall of 'All Saints' United Reformed church (formerly the Congregational Church), Junction Road, Burgess Hill.

Abingdon, Oxfordshire. 1940s

Two photos possibly taken around the same time. Early WW2 period auxiliary fire service vehicles parading past the abbey gateway in the centre of Abingdon. At the same intersection, to the right of the gate, was the Hays and Son butcher shop, in a row of shops which was demolished for road widening post-war. Dating these is a bit problematic. Hays & Son apparently stopped trading before the war, the vehicles date to 1939-1941, but the street decorations suggest that this is VE Day. Draw your own conclusions.

Royal Six Bells pub, Wimbledon, London. 1940s

Part of a series that appear to have been publicity shots for the London Electricity Board. They must have either been upgrading street lighting or replacing gas lamps with electric ones. That's a Commer truck. Part of the pub sign "Ro...B..." is visible and this was enough to allow a helpful Flickr user to pin it down for me. It still exists though now disused, boarded up and looking a bit sad. See a recent photo of it here.

Port Said, Egypt. Sept 1946.

A set of six, carefully annotated photos taken within a week period in 1946 in Port Said, at the entrance to the Suez canal. A transit point for world shipping and, a year after the end of the war with Japan, still funnelling the demobbed, sick and injured from the east back to the UK. (Above) The Orient liner RMS 'Otranto' which was built in 1929 for the UK to Australia service, carrying thousands of emigrants there in her lifetime. There is an apartment building named after her in Brisbane. At the time this photo was taken she was being used as a troop ship. She was scrapped in 1957.

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