This page is Family Favourites (additions 4th
Jan 2011): Please
allow time for the photographs to download
A page of favourite family photos and
holiday memories,
with our “Desert
Island” choice of music, art and literature.
The name of the page reflects popular
wireless programmes from our youth:
Family
Favourites, Desert Island
Discs and These you have Loved.
1: Barbara, Robert and the Girls:
A
Photo Gallery from the 1940s to date
2: Darlaston’s Desert
Island Delights:
A
selection of things which continue to give pleasure
1:
Barbara, Robert and the Girls:
A Photo Gallery from the 1940s to date
A selection of favourite
photographs which show the passing of the years, from childhood to the present
day.
Our Early Years:
A
small selection (in black and white, of course) taken from 1945 to 1960 which
evoke memories from over fifty years ago:
On the big red engine on his 5th
birthday, and in the garden at Stechford Road on his
10th birthday.
The big red engine, made by Dad, was a definite favourite for several
years.
In the second photo, the Amberley Prep School blazer was a deep claret
colour with blue piping round the edge (Aston Villa colours, come to think of
it, that being the local football team.)
A rare photo of the three of us: at
Robert was then just 15, Dad was approaching 49 and Mom was 51.
A joyous week had been spent exploring North Wales in uncharacteristically
good weather and Robert had been especially pleased with visits to the Talyllyn and Ffestiniog Railways.
Note the then
fashionable Sixth-former’s rose in the button hole!
A school memory:
Maths was definitely my weak subject. On one particularly difficult topic,
quadratic equations perhaps, my fixed stare of mingled concentration and bewilderment
was clearly off-putting to our Master, Mr Skinner. He suddenly broke off while in full
flow. He looked at me and said:
“Darlaston, when you look at me like that, you make me feel an absolute
cad!”
Two early photos of Barbara growing up:
Left: trying out her tricycle in
Summerfield Park with a Birmingham Corporation ‘bus on Dudley Road in the
background.
Right: relaxing in her early teens, already showing
what an attractive young lady she would soon become!
Robert’s memories of the 1940s can be
found at MemoryLane2.htm
His account of school life in the 1950s can be found at KingEdwardsSchool.htm
Our
Wedding Day: 11th
June 1969: 
At St Alphege
Church, Solihull on a day of glorious summer’s day
A photograph taken by
Uncle Allan, one of only a handful of colour pictures of the occasion, on a
blissful day of brilliant summer sunshine
The 1970s and 1980s:
“Surprised at the sink”, Four
Oaks,
1972 Goostrey, 1974.
Note the marvellous short skirts of
the day!
Some of
Robert’s favourite photos of Barbara from the 1970s and ‘80s
Left:
En route to Switzerland, on the Rheingold
Express, 1970
(The pink dress had been part of her
“going-away outfit” after our wedding the previous year.)
Right: Barbara near the summit of the Eggishorn. (We had, of course, travelled up by cable
car!)
“The Last of the Summer Wine”: lunch in the garden, 1983
Barbara poses for Robert’s camera in
the garden, 1983 – when we had summers which were warm enough to relax outside.
Barbara in the garden in 1984 and
1988
... and now four of Barbara’s favourite photos of Robert from
the same period:
Robert is usually behind the camera, and so
appears in fewer photos, but here are four taken by Barbara in the 1970s and
1980s:
...
Clockwise from top
right: On board P. & O.’s S.S. Canberra
in the Mediterranean, 1976; risking Hay Fever in field of buttercups and
daisies near Thornton-le-dale in Yorkshire in 1975, drying off after a dip in the sea at Southerndown in 1987; reading Gramophone magazine in 1984
Mary
arrived in 1976 and Ann came five years later, so we then had our hands full!
Mary
having fun in her bouncy chair when a few weeks old in 1976 and with ‘Joey’ at Stechford Road- notice the blonde curls!
Left:
Late 1981, with Ann only a few weeks old and about a year later.
Right:
Mary’s pride as an older sister is very evident (as is the wear on her
slippers!).
The late 1980s and 1990s:
Holiday
scenes from Rockcliffe, Southwest Scotland
(Left): An
afternoon with the girls on the beach:
Mary and Ann get their toes wet, but Barbara keeps hers dry. (1990)
(Right) Mary
investigates the rock pools (1990)
Of course, the sun didn’t always
shine, and there are other ways of getting wet than going in the sea!
A walk to the beach after dinner in
the evening (1990)
Back
at home ...
A family group by the garden pond in
1988. Mary and Ann in the
uniform of
Barbara looking relaxed at home in
1990 Mary and Ann put on a magic show for
Grandma’s 87th birthday (1991)
Family Occasions in the 21st Century:
Our Daughters’ Weddings:
Mary
and Will’s wedding: 15th April 2000 Ann
and Robyn’s wedding 4th June 2005
Two
very happy occasions!
All
together in 2002
All
together: Mary, Ann, Robert and Barbara
by the River Dee at Llangollen in 2002 photo – Barbara Killey
2008
Robert, Robyn, Ann, Mary. Will and
Barbara caught by the ship’s photographer on board P&O’s Artemis as she sails from Southampton to
Celebrations
in 2009 and 2010
11th June 2009:
our Ruby Wedding – forty glorious years! 23rd
June 2010: Darlaston hits 70 (oh dear!):
In the left hand photo taken at home we are cutting a cake
(well camouflaged to look like the bench on which it is standing!)
In the right hand photo Robert is accompanied by Mary and
Barbara in the garden.
Some childhood memories of the 1940s
can be found at MemoryLane2.htm
2: Darlaston’s Desert Island Delights:
A selection of things we enjoy
Here
is our joint selection from the various branches of the Arts. The items chosen are not meant to be “the
best” in each field, but merely those items which (at the moment of typing!)
seemed to represent a pleasing assortment.
We chose several of the items because of their connection with past
events in our lives. Restricting
oneself to eight is tough! How could we
compile such a list of books without Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy or Evelyn Waugh,
to pick three names almost at random?
Will Mozart ever forgive us for his omission? At least we all know that every respectable
desert island comes complete with a complimentary copy of the complete works of
Shakespeare, thus justifying his omission from our list!
Paintings: eight works we could live with, mostly by
19th century artists, and all, apart from one, painted by
Englishmen.
JMW Turner: Venice: the Dogana and San Georgio (1834) BW
Leader: February Fill Dyke (1881)
Gainsborough: Isabella, Countess of Sefton (1769) Monet: Terrace at Saint Adresse
(1867) Cox: Sun, Wind and Rain (1845)
Millais: Autumn Leaves (1856) Beardsley: The Peacock Skirt (1894) Poynter: Water Babies (1900)
Turner: this painting has a marvellous luminous
quality in its portrayal of the world’s most beautiful city.
Leader: this work (familiar to us from visits to
Birmingham Art Gallery) depicts so well the light of a winter’s afternoon.
Gainsborough: a painting in the Walker Gallery in
Liverpool: note the wonderful way in which the reflective cloth of the dress is
worked
Monet: this has all the freshness of an afternoon by
the sea: one can almost feel the breeze
that blows the flags.
Cox: the artist works marvels through the medium
of water colour
Millais: (another familiar work, from visits to
Manchester Gallery) catches the sad transience of childhood.
Beardsley: marvellous elegance in black and white – one
of his few works not to be blatantly erotic!
Poynter: what
red-blooded man can resist these gorgeous young ladies?
Having listed our Desert Island
Delights, here are eight of Robert’s dislikes – mostly trivial, it’s true, but
irritations, nonetheless: ‘Elf ‘n Safety:
(On a plastic coffee cup:
“Contents may be hot” – “I should *** hope so, too!”) Endless and pointless announcements on trains; “Be sure to take your belongings with you” – “Shan’t!” People who bray so loudly into their mobile phones
that one wonders why they need them at all Muzak pounding or whining away in shops Voluminous
weekend newspaper supplements which go unread into the waste paper Referring to
ladies by surname only, without their customary courtesy title The lazy
figures of speech used in business (“hit the ground running”; “touch base”, “the elephant in
the room” etc) The cult of
celebrity, usually applied by the media to people best forgotten
You
are also welcome to view the following pages:
MemoryLane2.htm
(Robert’s childhood memories of the war, early days at school, food
rationing, a spell in hospital, and other schoolboy memories!)
KingEdwardsSchool.htm (Life at King Edward’s
School, Birmingham, in the 1950s.)
Birmingham Pictorial.htm (Photographs of
CruiseHolidays.htm (Photographs of cruise holidays, from Canberra
to Istanbul in 1976 to Aurora at New York in 2010)
http://www.robertdarlaston.co.uk/