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

They all had those glasses when I was in knee socks

Im totally invested now....

Shamelessly place marking as I’m intrigued.

Did the Queen send 50th anniversary telegrams in that timeframe? I know it’s 60 years of marriage now, but I’m sure I remember someone saying it was Golden Anniversary at one time.

I mean, it might be? Trying to look past the hair - which is identical

And yep - these ridiculous posts have a way of passing a few hours trying to find out something almost impossible. You should have been on the jewellery box one! You'd have been excellent 😀

I'm just not sure if the nose is quite right

I think it's later than 60s purely going by my own grandparents who were wearing the same style in the early 80s - including glasses. They didn't tend to update their wardrobes much.

The tiny bit of wall paper visible looks later than 1960s too, but I'm no expert.
Could the occasion be something like best village garden? Or competition win? It seems like a lot of bouquets for a golden wedding.

I think the nose and smile are different. The hairstyle and glasses were pretty standard for the era. I think the flower woman has false teeth, whilst Mrs King’s look like her own.

The photo looks later than sixties to me, something about the quality of it, it looks too clear or the tones/contrast look wrong for sixties. My grandparents also dressed like this late into the eighties.

My DH is a photographer, The quality of B&W photographs would most likely have been better in the 60s/70s when taken by a professional photographer.

If you know the name of the newspaper might be on the British newspaper archive.

Your nose does change shape with age eg it can look longer with wider nostrils. Mrs King has more facial subcutaneous fat than the lady in the second photo, Her face is rounder, her cheeks chubbier and her neck plumper. Facial lipoatrophy is part of the ageing process. I think the second photo could be Mrs King a decade later in the 1970s.

Like chrysanthemums in the garden, that hairstyle was pretty ubiquitous for women over 40 though! 😂

@staybyyou that's 97% the same woman. Or her sister...

I agree that the flower lady looks like she is wearing dentures and Mrs King doesn’t. I think it is plausible flower lady is an older Mrs King.

I was born in 1964 and in my first baby photos my mum and nan are both wearing those glasses.

Black and white doesn't mean much about the year, local newspapers used B&w for absolutely decades, well into 2000s. As pp said quality is very good. I'm thinking 1970s or even early 80s as older people kept on those glasses for years (hi great-nan!). Their skin, hair and teeth are very good so I reckon no more than golden anniversary unless they are just super-agers. The bungalow windows look quite modern also, as does their little white doorbell.

She’s wearing a two piece, not a dress. Those sort of check decorations were mid sixties. I know, I was around then.

I did a search on grey brick bungalows in Wantage, found this on Rightmove, it's not quite right but looks like there is a row so maybe near there? You could google street view??!!

Oo, no. I thought it was a possible match when blurred but different nose when clearer.

Oh yes, I can see at least one red rose in a bouquet - and looking at the window, another bunch of flowers in a vase

So they literally received 6 or 7 bunches of flowers that we can see in that one photo.

I think the fact they're cellophane wrapped indicates delivered flowers so as much as I'd love it to be prize chrysanthemum winner Mr Goodennough, I think these are flowers they've had locally delivered/ handed to them.

Given that this photo was in a batch, all of which were golden wedding anniversary photos and all identified eventually, I think the anniversary thing is probably correct. And I don't think they're quite old enough for diamond. That would make them 80 + ( potentially, if they'd married at 21) and I think this is a couple in their early ish 70s. Maybe mid 70s

@samlovesdilys St John's road isn't a bad shout at all. It's known as 'old grove' and the houses are definitely older along there. I know where it is so I'll take a drive round tomorrow

I wonder if there's a possibility that the house I longer exists? Doubtful though. It's not that old a pic really. 60 years maximum

I don't know if this helps. You can see the reflection of the house opposite more clearly in the window.

I'd say 1970s or even early 1980s.

The two in this pic look very similar in style/fashion/hair do and glasses to my GPs circa late 60s/early 70s. Both my GMs wore glasses just like the woman in the pic from early sixties to early/mid 70s at leastTBH, I think my lovely longest lived GM was still sporting a similar style, (if not the same pair), circa 1990!

If I had to pick a date, I’d say 1971 - it just feels early 70s to me.

Great thread btw. I have a ‘mystery’ myself that’s been driving me bonkers since I was a teenager- maybe I should start a thread too, now I know it’s a ‘thing’.

I also agree that the woman could be a ten years older Mrs King, but hard to tell. I am guessing the guy who posted that pic would know.

@Dee1224 I keep meaning to set up a permanent thread over in the history topic ! I've posted maybe half a dozen threads like this in the past few years (I collect miniature antiques and letters / photos/ postcards from about 1800-1920 ish) and we've had quite a bit of success with the MN super sleuths

For reference, my maternal GM looked the age of the lady in the photo when she was in her late fifties/very early sixties. Assuming this lady was slightly better preserved, if it’s a GW anniversary pic, she’d be late 60s max. I’d say he’s a bit older.

People did tend to ‘look older’ back then - I have a pic of my maternal GM looking 45 at least, yet she was only 31!