Author: basilisksam

Photographer and writer with special interests in vintage photography and equipment.

Categories
Dance photography Social history

Vintage Dancing Girls: The Expressionists

Above is an example of what I call “The Expressionists” for want of a better term. Obviously these groups of dancers are trying to convey something but it isn’t always obvious what they want to say. As often as not there’s no information on the cards to help.

I can tell you that this card comes from an album featuring Raybury School of Dancing Folkstone, Maidstone and Athelston School. Dated in the 1930s but what it’s about I don’t know. A scene from an opera perhaps?

And this one’s from from an album of photographs and clippings related to ballet in Weymouth during the 1950s and 1960s. I guess they are posing for a photographer while warming up.

I call this one “The Dying Swan.” You can often come across variations of this type.

Another mystery. Representing some sort of myth?

Obviously a ritual to welcome the spring I’d argue!

Ah, must be the dance of the birdhouse!

Homage to the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Variations on the circle dance are also popular.

Any suggestions on the real subjects of these dances welcome.

Categories
Music Hall photography

Violet Lorraine

“So often it’s hard or impossible to find out anything about music hall performers who appear on Real Photographic Post Cards. In the case of Violet Lorraine there’s a fair amount of material to be found. Wikipedia tells us:

She was born Violet Mary Tipton in Kentish Town, London, in 1886 and went on the stage as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen. Her rise to fame came in April 1916 at the Alhambra Theatre in the musical/revue The Bing Boys Are Here. She was given the leading female part, Emma, opposite George Robey playing Lucius Bing. It became one of the most popular musicals of the World War I era. She retired from the stage on her marriage on 22 September 1921 to Edward Raylton Joicey MC (1890–1955) and they had two sons, John and Richard. She returned to acting for the screen, appearing in Britannia of Billingsgate (1933), a musical based on the play of the same name by Christine Jope-Slade and Sewell Stokes, followed by Road House in 1934.

Violet Mary Joicey died in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1956, eight days short of her seventieth birthday.”

Further information can be seen in this article from an old magazine:

Violet was famous for singing “If you were the only girl in the world” with George Robey. You can hear her singing if you search her name on Youtube.

I’ve shown the RPPCs in my collection but there are lots more out there.

Finally, and I don’t know whether to believe this, the John Peel Wiki claims that he played played her track, ‘When We’ve Wound Up The Watch On The Rhine’ on his radio show.

Categories
Dance photography Social history

Vintage Dancing Girls: Couples

Vintage dancing girls come in many different configurations from solo dancers (some just posing), troupes professional and amateur, old, young and sometimes not even girls as you will see below. That diversity is what struck me about this genre of RPPCs and photographs when I began this collection. I’ll be posting some examples of the different types of dancing girls in the future but I’m starting with a few of the couples from the first 100 items in my flickr album.

So clearly this dancing girl on the left is a man. One of the intriguing things about collecting old photographs and postcards – irrespective of the gender of the participants, you have to ask “What on earth were they thinking of when they did this?”

I think it’s safe to say this is two women. The studio is Stahl Studio, 1221 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA.
I’m guessing 1920s from the looks and clothing.

Colourised postcards were very popular. Curiously only the dancer to the right has her dress colourised though it’s possible the other dress was too but the colour has faded.

Ideal Studios. Written on back “Myrtle The Witch Marjorie Fairy Bluebell School Play London St Martins School 1921.” It’s always a bonus to have details such as date, names, studios, locations.

The second photo is also by Ideal Studios Oxford St. Written on back ” Myrtle and Marjorie Dancing Display.”

Musical theatre type outfits are popular though Jazz hands not so much.

A more candid photograph in contrast to the more usual and obviously posed ones. There’s nothing to identify the dancers but from their clothes I’d guess late 1950s or early 1960s.

Again nothing to identify these two. This was image 100 in the collection in 2016. The album was started in 2012 and is, of course, still ongoing.

Categories
photography

Keep watching the skies

Some recent shots of sunset over Dene Quarry, Cromford. We often have spectacular sunsets over the quarry and all I have to do is walk out onto the patio and take the photograph. Sometimes the colours look unreal or manipulated but they are just as taken in camera.

If I turn 90 degrees to the left and walk to the end of my drive I can catch the skies in the direction of Black Rocks, a local beauty spot.

Categories
Social history

Some Music Hall Curiosities

Sometimes it’s hard to understand music hall performers. I’ve seen at least two other postcards of The Yorkshire Rustics yet what was their act really like? From this image they look more frightening than entertaining. Certainly depictions of simpletons and lunatics would be offensive to the modern eye.

There’s a good discussion between Alexi Sayle and Stewart Lee about music hall acts in Alexi Sayle’s podcast (episode 7) about “working class surrealism.” They’re both music hall fans and the more I think about it the more I can see music hall influences on variety acts of the late twentieth century and, of course, Sayle and Lee and other performers like Frank Skinner, himself a George Formby fan.

Speaking of surreal, how about this skating girl and skating bear? That must have been a sight to see.

And here’s a girl talking to her teddy bear.

Groups of “juveniles” were very popular in the halls and some performers continued to perform as juveniles long after they could sensibly claim to be so young. In terms of collecting I can’t successfully repair the damage to this card digitally, though it’s still of interest.

There’s a fine line between music hall performers and those who would once have been exhibited in “freak shows.” According to sideshowworld.com “Lady Little travelled all over the world. In 1913 she was 23 inches tall and weighed 12.75 lbs.” Contrast the indignities suffered by the Elephant Man and the popularity with royalty of “General” Tom Thumb.

Contortionists were another staple of the music hall and variety.

And of course there were the ever popular exotic acts.

The TV programme “The Good Old Days” did a good job of reproducing some famous acts but it was clearly a highly sanitised version of what a real music hall bill was like.

Categories
Dance Social history

About the Tiller Girls

In the popular imagination the Tiller Girls are more like the colour photograph above. This one was taken in 1990 by Paul Groves for the Daily Telegraph. Those of us of a certain age will think back to seeing the Tiller Girls on Sunday Night at the London Palladium in the 1960s.

Most people will be surprised to learn that the photo of the “tennis players” above were also Tiller Girls. In fact there have been many Tiller Troupes and Tiller Girls over the years, starting in 1894 when John Tiller established a school of dance where girls were drilled to perform routines with military precision. (He’d probably be banned from Strictly Come Dancing these days).

Above are two Tiller troupes from 1916.

Tiller troupes were popular additions to music hall bills and to pantomimes. On the back of this card is written “Put me amongst the Girls” but the signature is unreadable.

Even these curious ladies are Tillers.

There are so many Tiller-trained groups that some of them went under different names. The Palace Girls for instance were trained in a Tiller school.

Every end of pier show would have their own Tiller Girls and, of course, they were used to sell sheet music.

These Tiller Girls are from 1954.

Another Daily Telegraph photo from 1988 of a Tiller Girls reunion, but which version or are they just a mix from different troupes?

This newspaper cutting gives some idea of Tiller’s involvement in his work. The date’s not certain but the cuttings were with two postcards dated 1916.

If you want to know more about Tiller’s Girls then the book by Doremy Vernon is the place to go. The book’s out of print but easily available on auction sites.

Categories
Edwardian photography Social history

A typical morning at Home

I’ve always got several projects on the go. These postcards of a ballerina were dated September 1914 at Bexhill-on-Sea. They’re the latest addition to my collection of vintage dancing girls, a project running for over 10 years now and amounting to 563 entries. My recent article on this collection in the British Music Hall Society‘s magazine only scratched the surface and there’s much more to come.

I’m still experimenting with pictorialism as a style so here’s the view through the gate and down the lane.

Speaking of views from the house here’s a recent sunset. From the front of the house I look west over the local quarry and there are often spectacular sunsets.

All sorts of ephemera turn up when collecting old photographs, like this knitting pattern. I have a theory that these old patterns will become ever more collectable, not for the patterns themselves but for the photographs on the covers. The amount of activity around knitting patterns on Ebay seems to support this idea.

After a hard morning processing scans and photographs it’s time to relax in the garden and here’s Gnasher finding some shade.

And here’s two of our local squirrels cleaning up seeds that have fallen from the bird feeder.

It’s a hard life!

Categories
Social history

Miss Secretary of Great Britain 1965

Material from a file belonging to Cynthia Williams about her entry into the Miss Secretary of Great Britain 1965 competition. I don’t know how many years this competition ran for as I can find nothing about it on the internet.

This is Cynthia arriving for the competition.

And this is Cynthia photographed for the competition.

In contrast this is clearly an amateur photo of Cynthia and her cat. Much more charming I think.

Another photo presumably from a family album.

And a candid snap which was also in the file.

As well as the photos there are pages of correspondence about the competition, good luck cards, accommodation details and so on.

This newspaper clipping confirms Cynthia was a runner-up in the competition and won a £50 prize, well worth having in the mid 60s. Note her street address was given – not something we’d expect to see today.

How many other files exist in attics documenting the ordinary and extraordinary exploits of everyday people? When they surface they are much more interesting than the lives of modern “celebrities.”

Categories
photography Social history

Ruth 1960s Model

Ruth Wells was evidently a 1960s model and most of the photographs I have of her were clearly taken by a professional, although there are some amateur ones too. One photo has on the back “Height 5’5” Bust 34” Waist 24” Hips 35” Hair Dark Brown Brown Eyes.” Some of the photos are stamped ”Newnes and Pearsons” on the reverse who I believe published many popular magazines. There’s not much else on the back of the photos but one has handwritten “Taken for Women’s Own about 3 years ago.” I have 70+ photos of her including clippings from magazines.

I’ve taken a good number of photos from contact prints and done some minimal restoration. Above is one of the sheets plus I’ve enlarged a couple of cells which have been marked up for cropping and removing blemishes which someone would have had to do old school style, long before computer retouching. There’s nothing new about retouching, just faster and easier ways to do it.

She looks the part for someone who would appear in popular magazines of the time and would appeal to the general audience rather than just the swinging 60s crowd.

She looks wholesome even in the swimsuit shots!

Once again I am astonished at how collections like this just get thrown out or end up in house clearances. These photos are a lovely glimpse into a piece of social history as well as coming from someone’s private collection. There’s more personal information including wedding photographs which I haven’t included here or on my Flickr feed. We worry about privacy in the digital age but the information in some of the newspaper clippings I have on Ruth even give the address of where the married couple were going to live.

Categories
occult photography spooky

Scary Dolls, Haunted Dolls

So I was listening to an episode of the loopholes podcast when they began discussing haunted dolls. Though I often find old photos of dolls creepy I never realised there was a whole sub-culture invested in haunted dolls. Indeed I was astonished to find a search for “haunted dolls” on Ebay came up with 1600 such dolls for sale. These dolls came with detailed histories of when and where they came from, what their powers were and so on. Cue a discussion with my wife about buying old dolls at car boot sales and making up stories for them before selling them on ebay.

This angry child from my cabinet card collection would be a good basis for a story. Now where can I find a doll that looks like hers?

This girl and her doll look particularly spooky don’t you think?

This doll has such powers it needs six girls to restrain it.

Now this photograph, and it is a photograph not a postcard, has real potential. The Ebay seller I bought this from suggested it could be a post mortem photograph, a “popular” thing to take in Victorian times and commanding high prices for good examples from collectors today.

Ultimately I don’t think this a PM photo even though the Girl’s eyes seem to have been painted on. The doll though – now that’s a different matter.

I don’t really believe in haunted dolls though, after watching a Youtube video of twenty haunted dolls, I noticed the comments were mostly people apologising to the dolls for looking at them without permission. I didn’t apologise so if you don’t hear from me again you’ll know why.