Some people know how to relax and have fun – and picnics are a wonderful way to do that. Some people bring their tensions and rigidity with them wherever they go, and not even picnics can help! This picnic is Clara Ann Williams (older woman) with her daughters Maisie (L of Clara), Sis (far L) and Billie (R in a scarf). Her granddaughter Muriel Maisie Beacon is sitting in her Mum’s lap, and if you look carefully, you’ll see there’s a kitten nuzzling with one of the other two women (friends, unidentified). I didn’t notice the kitten initially, but when cleaning up some of the image scratches and flaws, there’s a sleepy kitten nestling! Who takes a tiny kitten on a picnic?
The Williams family did. Muriel had a wonderful time watching the kitten’s antics – at least there was a basket to corral the kitty if things got out of hand. Billie turned around to check on the would-be escapee. There are a number of shots of this picnic – probably around 1919 or 1920 given Muriel’s size – and there’s a great relaxed feel about the whole event. And it’s not just the bottle of Douro Port they brought with them! My grandmother, Billie, even had the kitten use her shoulders as a climbing frame.
In the picture heading this post, Billie Williams is on a picnic at the beach and looks very relaxed with a book, some food in the small leather case and probably my grandfather to keep her company (I don’t have other photos from this outing, so I’m not sure who took the picture). She looks truly at ease, bathed in sunlight, with her swimming costume by her feet for later.
Contrast those picnics with this one, which looks to me as if it’s punishment for having done something improper. I believe the woman in the center, Winifred Adelaide Forster (née Procktor) is the one setting the tone. Her daughter, my mother Yvonne, is on the right and sister, Hilda Procktor on the left. Wynne had a firm sense of how things should be done – including having fun the right way – and often lost the plot about stopping to enjoy the company of the people she was with. My mother wasn’t at all that way, but as an only child and a future actor, learned to give the performance that would keep a scolding at bay.
A picnic from when Yvonne was just a toddler looks similarly stiff to me – the stool and the bib versus sitting on a blanket and running around with your food. It also looks a little chilly – and with no leaves on the trees yet, perhaps it’s a little early for eating outdoors?
It might be a stretch to call a tent in the garden a picnic, but for my mother’s first birthday (July 2nd 1930) her mother went all out and set up a tent, brought out the tea trolley and a play pen for the birthday girl, and invited a few adults over. Wynne is on the left (with the cinnamon bun hairstyle); her mother (Gan gan to my Mum) is on the white bench on the right; my mother is the prisoner in the playpen.
This picnic is much more my cup of tea – my parents, Aunty Jill (I assume Uncle Sven took the picture) and me running off to play among the boats on the Thames Estuary. This would have been 1956 or early 1957. I notice the two women are keeping an eye on me, while my Dad kept his eye on the camera 🙂
My two youngest brothers, Tony & Mike, had a meal in the garden at home on a sunny afternoon – not quite a picnic, but everyone looks really happy to be eating outside. My stepmother Margo is getting a huge kick out of something they said or did and my Dad must have taken the picture. Quite a shift from formal to informal between my mother’s 1930 party and this 1971 garden meal.
