I am cheating this week and posting an image that is not mine. It is though of my Mother and Father and my two sisters Anne and Margaret, all now long gone. I don’t have a specific date for the image but by a process of elimination it has to be very early 1930’s.
As you can see it is a formal family portrait in a rather grand setting. The average family didn’t aspire to spend their earnings on such luxuries as commissioning a professional photographer…. and my family was certainly not from a well healed background, far from it.
But my Father did have a strong social conscience and worked hard to improve not just his own life style but that of his colleague workers and their families. This picture was not commissioned by him, but by the Political Party who he represented in Local Government, for use in several successful electioneering campaigns.
I was not even a distant twinkle in my parents eyes at that time. By the time I came on the scene many years later, both the Political and World Wide climate had changed as a result of the turmoil’s of the 2nd World War. My Father became sceptical of Politicians of any persuasion but until his death continued to work for better labour/employers relations.
18 January
© David Oakes 2014
DAVID OAKES - IMAGES. 
A handsome family, David.
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How lovely to have a portrait of your family from that time and the power of the photograph to keep these important things with us.
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I have come to treasure highly the images that our forebears have chosen to save for our contemplation, and I love looking at albums and boxes of old photos that my parents have saved throughout their lives. This is an eloquent family portrait, and they look like the kind of folks I would have enjoyed knowing. Thanks for sharing this very personal vision of your family’s past.
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Your father sounds like he was a fine man.
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Then hats off to him, David! People like your father are still needed!
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