Anyone like to help try and solve a local history mystery? Very little to go on but we've had some success before!

[YeOldeTrot]

Hello

I'm back and calling on the Mumsnet history sleuths

I posted last month with a little jewellery box and we made some fascinating discoveries but this one is TOUGH

So, we have a photo. This photo was clearly once in a newspaper - possibly North Wilts Herald.

The couple in this photo are receiving bunches of flowers and it's believed that it was their Golden Wedding Anniversary and they were having their pic taken for the paper.

As for the year ... hard to say but clearly late 60s - early ish 70s?

So we've not got much.

Any pointers appreciated

It’s small image, but the leaves look like chrysanthemum to me, serrated and dull, dahlias would be more potato-y.

The flowers in the garden are dahlias and flower from June to first frosts.

Wantage is not that big. I have been there. You could probably find the house style if you visited and walked round the place.

There is a doorbell so that suggests it is a front door rather than a back one.

It is much easier to locate if it is a front door.

Ok so I have this response from the local historian ....

Thats the photo. I know it was in the North Wilts Herald because its part of the press photo collection donated to the museum by the daughter of Jack Loftin. Jack was the local reporter for the NWH for many years based in Mill Street. You will find he contributed to Old Wantage and was known to many locals.

I think mid-late 60s because my Granddad is wearing that exact same outfit, tie and specs (almost) in a photo where he is ‘older’. And he died in 1968.

@GasPanic I live here! Well, half a mile down the road! Good point re it definitely being the front door... I wonder if it's a bungalow too

It looks like the North Wilts Herald merged with Swindon Advertiser in 1942: https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/aboutus/

Although I think Wantage may have been a little too far east. You might be better off searching for the Wantage Herald or North Berks Herald: https://www.britishpapers.co.uk/england-se/wantage-grove-herald/

It's been shared in a local history group several times along with a wider community page. This is practically the only one (a few were shared) where we can't find out who they are

I have photos from the sixties to mid seventies with elderly relatives wearing similar glasses.

Does the newspaper still exist? They may have a photo archive. Have you checked the national newspaper archive for all local papers from that era?

Have they tried getting a local paper to run the story to see if anyone recognises them?

Do you have any idea of the location? It would be painstaking but you could cross reference streets with houses of the correct age in Wantage with the census for couples of the correct age in that decade+ with marriage records….

Why are they trying to identify the couple? Is there a clue there eg is it someone their family knew or it was found in an attic (so they may be related to previous occupants or lived there) etc?

@TheCompactPussycat

Local historian seems certain .. but do we think this is 100% ?

''Thats the photo. I know it was in the North Wilts Herald because its part of the press photo collection donated to the museum by the daughter of Jack Loftin. Jack was the local reporter for the NWH for many years based in Mill Street. You will find he contributed to Old Wantage and was known to many locals.''

What is the mystery exactly?

Do you want to find out who they are, or why their photo was in the paper?

You mention golden wedding, how do you know it’s golden wedding (was this a regular thing to be in that local paper for?).

Are you certain it's for a golden wedding? Going on their ages I'd say more like diamond.

@Fitzbillie that's my next step. Cross referencing who was celebrating 50 years of marriage in wantage in about 1960 ish...

Wantage was in Berkshire until, I believe, 1974.
The best Facebook group for the town is now https://m.facebook.com/groups/WantageAndGroveCommunity/?ref=share

if you haven’t already tried this group? Sorry, couldn’t work out from the previous posts if you had.

Ooh, maybe he's right...
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/11566836.community-stalwart-prolific-letter-writer/

I would say from the photos that house has two windows either side of the front door (double fronted?). That is pretty unusual. Although the windows and doors and doorbell (which looks 50s/60s) will have changed, the general position of the windows is unlikely to.

I don't understand what that white bit is between the window on the right and the ground.

@Dougt I want to find out their names basically. Not for any nefarious / weirdo rd reasons ... just a fascination with social history and well, it's nice for people to be remembered, no matter how insignificant in actually history they might have been

But that's a good point re the anniversary (and @exLtEveDallas ) ... I think the shiny ribbons might be golden. But yep, could be diamond - my grandparents made their diamond wedding anniversary

Why so many bouquets though?

It also looks like only a quarter of a photograph, if you look at the white border around the left and top. Do you have any more of it?

@BIWI yes! Great question. You'd think the local paper would present with one bouquet.

Or were they showing off all the flowers they'd received from family or neighbours?

I'm not sure it's a golden wedding. For that, the couple would likely be 70 and I think those two are quite a bit younger. My grandparents looked like that by 50

Could it be something corny/sweet (depending on how you feel!) about both retiring on the same day? After x years of working together/at the same place?

I thought the same - I think they are late fifties.

@BIWI that's it sadly. The entire photo. Just spotted the window is open so this would appear to be summer