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Wednesday 7 December 2016

See Amid the Winter Snow: Sepia Saturday

This week's  prompt photograph has a snowy theme - with two girls (teenagers?) having fun making a "snowwoman".

In my family, the camera was obviously just for summer use as no winter photographs exist.    I do recollect my mother saying how hard it was to keep  my baby brother warm - he was born a few months before one of the worst winters in modern history - 1947.  Britain was still suffering in the aftermath of war, with food rationing, power cuts, coal shortages - and no central heating in those days.

Here are pictures from the collection of my local heritage group Auld Earlston in the Scottish Borders of winter 1947. 

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.”
 (Carl Reiner) 

  Digging out the train in Earlston Station 

 
The main A68 road through the central Borders, linking Newcastle with Edinburgh


Earlston Square 

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J. B. Priestley
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/snow.html
The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J. B. Priestley
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/snow.html
But some people enjoy snow

Photographers looking for that perfect winter scene. 
The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jbpriest159615.html?src=t_snow

 "The first fall of snow is not only an event, but a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up to another kind of world, and if this is not enchantments, then where is it to be found?"  (J.B,Priestley) 
The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jbpriest159615.html?src=t_snow

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jbpriest159615.html?src=t_snow
An idyllic snowy picture of Selkirk in the Scottish Borders c.1925.  
from the collection of the Heritage Hub, Hawick

 
 Earlston in the winter of 2011
 
 The River Leader at Earlston, 2011



 Heron spotted on the River Slitrig in Hawick, Scottish Borders, 2009


 I spent a wonderful  year 1965-66  working in Cambridge, Massachusetts near Boston and this photograph brings back memories of the kind of winter I had not experienced before -  here in a picturesque image of  Harvard Chapel.

"Watch the woods fill up with snow" - Robert Frost
Cowdenknowes Woods, Earlston

Curling Enthusiasts - enjoying an outdoor game 

Members of Earlston Curling Club, 1995 

Dogs  - not too sure about the owners enjoying the snow, though!

Children 
"Jan-u-ary brings the snow;
 Makes our feet and fingers glow"  
(Sara Coleridge)  

My granddaughter exploring this new world of snow for the first time. 



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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers to share their family history through photographs.


Click HERE to see how other bloggers have ploughed their way 
through snow this week


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11 comments:

  1. What a wonderful (and cold-looking!) collection of winter pictures of all kinds and sorts. Nice job! :)

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  2. I guess Boston gets more snow but it looks like Earlston gets quite a bit too. Do you get less than you used to?

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    1. Thanks, Jo. To answer your question, snowy winters here are as unpredictable as most of our weather. 1947 and 1963 were memorably bad winters. Then we had a long period of wet and windy winters with Scotland's ski industry suffering through lack of snow. 2001 was bad. I then worked 12 miles north and could't get to work for three days, as my town was cut off and not even buses were running. The scenic photographs here were taken the winter of 2011-12. So as usual we just have to wait and see what this winter brings!

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  3. Your opening story about the post-war birth of your brother is an eye-opener for me. I had to be reminded that things don't return to normal immediately upon signing a peace treaty. Winters in Scotland might be brutally cold, but they sure are beautiful.

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  4. Gorgeous snow pictures. And I really enjoyed the quotes scattered throughout your post, too.

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  5. I was prowling around Cambridge and Boston when you were there all those years ago...Harvard Yard was lovely in snow, wasn't it?

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    1. Thanks, Deb. I was on a trainee librarian exchange scheme working i the Radcliffe Library. I loved Cambridge and Boston and was sorry to leave when my year was up. It was another 30 years before I returned with my daughter when we hired a car and explored mores of New England. Great memories!

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  6. Great collection of photos, I always love photos of icy branches, when the outdoors looks like a winter wonderland.

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  7. Nicely collated snowy photos and quotes. I love the Robert Frost one, as well as the poem from which it comes.

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  8. Snow is hard to photograph especially back when camera film was less sophisticated. What interests me about your older photos is the way snow filled streets were not plowed but trampled or shoveled by people, not vehicles.

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  9. Lovely collection of photos...and Earlston did have some beauty in snow, either in 47 or more recently. Our snow season seems intermittent too, some years almost nil, others being homebound for days.

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