Wigan Album

Looking at the 2 photos again Barrie I wonder if they were taken at different times. Your Mother is very casually dressed compared to your father in his suit & bowler. Also the house looks slightly different somehow...just a thought. Whatever, its a great photo !

I wonder if the bowler hat was an indication of his job because he was more skilled than the ordinary workman. Or he could have been trying to impress the future in laws when asking for their daughter’s hand in marriage.

The hat, tie and winged collar were probably indications of the occasion, as Veronica says. People took the trouble to dress up for Sundays, Church and special occasions back then. "Best clothes" had to last and were taken care of. I like the "mistiness" of both photos....it gives the slightly unreal feeling that you could step back in time like Gary Sparrow in Goodnight Sweetheart.

The crowd walking up the path reminds me of the Peaky Blinders…
Perhaps Father had his photo taken first and they had passed by the time your mum had her photo taken. Sorry can’t help with the technology Barrie.

do you know what your dads occupation was at the time of the photos ? if not i can look him up on 1921 censers to see if he was working then

Your dad was quite a dapper dresser Barrie, and in keeping with the fashion of the day with a well tailored suit, and as Irene mentions with winged collar shirt, and Veronica too with his bowler or billycock hat indicating a more important job rather than a flat cap of a labourer, though at the time folks would have owned and worn more hats than now.

Barrie there is a way of printing positives from a negative I did it a few years ago but I've forgotten how I did it??? Try Googling it.

The far figure in the distance could be a bloke on a boneshaker, reminds me of this nonsense I made up - "Beware on sunny days with a full moon, on those windy calm days of misty early November evenings in June, you can still hearken the ghostly cry and splash of a man on his bike falling upwards, though frantically pedalling downwards, deep into the abysmal depths of the murky green waters of the clear shallow canal - so beware then on those sunny days with a full moon, lest you meet the man upon a bike all covered in green goo, on those windy calm days of misty early November evenings in June."

Winnie, I know what Father was occupied with during the 1920's, he was at Massey Bros Pemberton as a trained coach builder constructing the wooden bodies on the buses & trams on the production line. He also was transferred to the Salford Corporation tram depot during 1926/27 when Massey's won the contract to reroof their trams as double decker's. He then left Masseys in 1935/36 and joined Santus Motor Bodies in Powell Street.
The reason for his suit was a Sunday when he usually went to church in Pemberton (neither CoE or RC) but on that day his Pa & Ma were visiting as they had been on holiday in Southport for that week and according to his diary, they all went to Alexandria Park to hear the Crooke Band playing during the afternoon. A number of photographs I've got of him in his teens showed him smartly dressed as was his younger brother and their friends. (1915-1926) As far as the Bowler Hat is concerned I feel that it has something to do with his Ma who, according to some of the family photos, show her wearing that hat and she had that hat in one of the Southport photos taken that week. They had gone to Church after their tea.
Ron, thanks for the tip. I have printed out a negative sometime ago but it wasn't like a photograph as such. Photo shops nowadays can't print from Negs as they don't have the equipment now.
The 2 photo's displayed were taken within a few minutes of each other that late afternoon as they continued their walk along the canal tow path up to Orrell Colleries where other photographs were taken. From there they headed back to Ormskirk Road Pemberton via Thornburn Lane.
I love reading your comments on the yesteryear photos that I submit. A bye-gone age brings back so many memories.

Barrie, just had a mooch and this article in Popular Photography shows how to, if you're good at crafts, though it says the resulting quality will not be what you would get from a photographic negative scanner.
https://www.popphoto.com/gear/2011/07/how-to-scan-negatives-using-standard-scanner/

Some scanners would come with an attachment to scan negatives, seems they now don't. There are scanners to put negs onto mobile phones on Amazon, though the ones to scan negatives onto a SD card are quite expensive just to use occasionally.

Just a thought, at Asda photoshop they may print you a photo and also be able to scan your negative onto a SD card for you to save to put onto a computer.

Barrie, I've just read your comment about photoshops stopping the printing of negatives, but this was after I sent my comments in, so please ignore.

It would have been a nice walk along Thorburn Lane in the 1920s, I remember it in the late 1950s and when parts of it still had Hawthorn hedgerows at either side, and it was nicer still when they were in blossom.

Cyril, thanks for the link but it is the same item that I found a couple of years ago under Popular Photography. I made the device but out of thick pure white card which didn't work well so gave it up. I'll try the Silver card stock if I can track some from a hobby/artist retailer on the Wirral.