llywela: (greatwards-arthurclara)
llywela ([personal profile] llywela) wrote2014-08-02 06:38 am

remembering days of yore

About a week or so ago, we lost one of the old fellas from my church. His name was Reg Howe and he was 90, so, you know, he had a good innings, and yesterday was his funeral. My Nan went to the funeral, because she'd known him when they were both young, and she brought with her stories of how he had courted my grandmother when they were both teens but he was an incorrigible flirt in those days so she ditched him for my grandfather (also called Reg) instead. Nan also brought with her photos, taken at a party thrown by her parents in their house at Goodrich St, Caerphilly, toward the end of the Second World War.

So here's dear old Reg Howe as I never knew him - dressed up to the nines in drag and posing first with an American soldier friend called Paul Gossett and then with a group, my great-grandfather Arthur in the front
GoodrichSt-Caerphilly-RegHowe-PaulGossett GoodrichSt-Caerphilly-Arthur, George Ward-RegHowe
This is my great-grampy Arthur being very politically incorrect, taking off Hitler - well, it was the end of a long, hard war
GoodrichSt-Caerphilly-ArthurWard
My grandmother Betty on the left with two friends
GoodrichSt-Caerphilly-BettyWard-friends
And a group pose in the back garden
GoodrichSt-Caerphilly-group
Just a quick little snapshot into another age, a party at my great-grandparents' family home, so very many years ago!