So here we are again: locked down and searching for ways of occupying ourselves between box sets. Next to my desk I have a suitcase full of old orphan photographs. These are photographs of unknown origin, things I have bought by the box full, job lots of memories. Whenever I have nothing better to do … Continue reading Imaginary Prospecting

It's just one of those photos; taken in happier days, developed, printed and stuck in an album to fade to a memory. Then the memory is gone and the rememberer is gone and the album page gets lost and torn until someone says, "put it in a job lot of old photos on eBay, there's … Continue reading Love Amongst The Cabbages

This is quite an unusual shot for a variety of reasons. Let's forget for a moment who these four people are, and where they were: both are unknown and not massively important in the great scheme of things - especially to the lover of old lost and found photographs. We do have, however, quite a … Continue reading Framed By A Window

The attraction of old photographs of unknown people is the very fact that they are unknown: sepia coloured blank canvases upon which we can paint whatever story we like. This young Edwardian man could be anyone's Grandfather or Great Uncle ..... or he could be a Great War poet mentally penning his ode to Armageddon. … Continue reading The Tomb Of The Unknown Civilian

This is a joyous photo. I have no idea who the people are, but they are striding away from the Marine Bathing Pavilion in Margate. At a guess, we are in the late 1920s, although, again, I can't be sure about that. What we can be certain about, however, is that they are having a … Continue reading Having A Great Time In Margate

Three girls on a pebbly beach. Whoever took this photograph captured a classic image without knowing about it.It became a small print, destined to fade into sepia age, pasted in an album, gradually forgotten and then left to make up the numbers in a job lot of old photos. Probably the 1940s, just possibly the … Continue reading Fashion Statement

We can't do smiles like we used to. Despite our endless ability to preen ourselves in front of app-laden mirror lenses, we could never match the enigma-rich smiles of this unknown trio, captured on a Bristol Channel paddle steamer in the 1920s.