Loving these photos…I thought I’d come here with at least a few old black and white pics but I haven’t…I know mom has them all in uk though…boxes full in the attic and under her bed…(she’s also got a box full of my 3 kids first drawings…love that lady…!) x 
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Love that one! Were they firemen?
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I have to ask my dad for more information. Will tell you later on !
Oh Paul, that’s horrible. How sad that you have no photos to remind you of childhood. I really feel for you.
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I’m loving them as well. I hope you are able to find some to post.
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What’s done is done. Besides my father and I had a bigger falling out recently from which I cannot see any reconciliation.
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That’s even sadder Paul. I can’t imagine being so estranged from a parent. I would give everything I own and more for the chance to see my Dad again. He was only 63 when he died and I needed another 30 years with him. Try not to write him off if you can, you may regret it when he’s gone.
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I had many a fallout with my parents. The last time was a13 year gap in our relationship until my father died. Although I started visiting my mother again we only ever managed to just about tolerate each other. Sad of course but life can’t always be rosy I suppose.
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Fell out with Dad after I learned he had had an affair, before we stopped talking, his last words were, "One day you’ll understand Bill.
Took a few years, but eventually I did, though feeling gutted for Mam, they did reconcile, but it was never quite the same.
Mam died first.
Dad and I once again became good mates before he died, so never say never.
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“Hilda Ogden”… Jean Alexander
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Yes Stella. Too easy, eh?
If you notice the background we are on a cruise ship. We met her on board, real name Jean Alexander of course, and she noticed, and was struck by, my little brother who is disabled. She asked my parents about him and after that we saw her a few times around the ship and she always spoke to us. She even bought my Dad an English newspaper when she went ashore in Rhodes. Very lovely lady.
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Nice to hear that she was as pleasant as she came across in interviews/chat shows etc… always made me chuckle… her and Stan in Coronation Street… in a previous lifetime… 
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That’s a very lovely tale Mandy, despite Her role on ‘Corry’, I heard, years ago, ‘somewhere’ She was a ‘Lady’
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Oh yes, she was very “proper” Bill with a posh accent. As far removed from “Hilda” as it was possible to get.
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The leopard picture is very upsetting.
Sorry - but life was like that 100 years ago. I find Mandy’s description of her dad living in poverty upsetting too. As the phrase goes, we can’t change the past but we can learn from it.
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Learning is the easy part, its taking positive action thats the challenge. The poverty of those days was appalling, the upsetting part for me is the stark image of the leopard, as normality. As a photograph its very impactive, a good photograph. The visual is stark. One could interpret that it depicts transgenderism. So what have you learned
I learnt why my father had different values than I have, and spent many a long hour debating the rights and wrongs of all sorts of things with him. His father & brother died when he was very small, and he and his mother were left to keep the farm going as best they could which by all accounts was not easy. So his sensibilities for all sorts of things weren’t high. But then I was told he was part of the medical team that helped liberate Belsen, so having a strong stomach may have stood him (and thus the people he had to treat) in good stead.
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