The youngster with the Marlon Brando gaze, is my Dad aged about eight or nine. He’s surrounded by assorted relatives, Mother, aunt, cousins, sister. I’ve no idea whose doorway this is, perhaps it’s his Aunt Sarah (Cis), the lady in the middle at the back. Cis is rather good at standing in doorways as regular readers will remember from ‘Open All Hours’, and now appearing in the soon to be published Sepia Saturday 200 book. I thought I’d used all my doorway pictures in that post and 'Doorstep Delivery’ (including the one below) but as luck would have it the one above magically appeared.
By 1950 Dad had graduated from Marlon Brando to David Niven/Errol Flynn, as he posed in a much happier mood, with Mum in front of their first real home together. Definitely a step up! When they married in 1942 they were both serving in the armed forces and even after demob they lived with my Grandma and Granddad until a council house in Nottingham became available to rent. I also lived in this house until we moved to Kendal in The English Lake District, when I was five.
There were to be many more doors for all of us over the next sixty years, and I’m pleased to say that they were all happy homes. It’s exactly one year since I last saw Dad, and he passed away a week later; I’m so glad that I have all these lovely photographs to remind me of him. Next week is also Mum's 93rd birthday and I’ll be flying to Nottingham and landing on her doorstep to give her a big hug. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.
For more people framed in doorways step up to this week’s Sepia Saturday. There may be a Marlon Brando or David Niven caught by the camera.