I’m fascinated to see this photograph of my Uncle Fred’s 1920s wedding.
My thanks to my cousin Kathleen for looking out this record of the 1926 marriage of her parents Fred and Constance Bell, which I’ve restored and colourised in Adobe Photoshop.
The cheeky eight-year in the foreground is my dad, Robert Douglas Bell. I don’t have many – if any – photographs of him as a child, so I’m pleased that this one has turned up.
Fred was the oldest, my dad the youngest and in between was my Aunt Norah.
The guests aren’t arranged in strict family order and Constance’s mum didn’t hold with new-fangled inventions like photography, so she doesn’t appear at all, so the guests, as identified by my cousin Kathleen are:
Back row: Robert Bell (my grandad); Lena, his sister; the best man, a friend of Fred’s; Fred Bell; Constance; Edwin, her brother; Jack, husband of May on the front row; Nellie Ogden; Tilly Ogden.
Front row: May, married to Jack; Norah Bell; Robert Douglas Bell; Helen, sister of Constance (died 1942, aged 47); Jane Bell (nee Bagshaw) my grandma – did she end up seated here, diagonally opposite her husband Robert when Constance’s mum refused to be on the photograph?