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

I’m going for it @YeOldeTrot - I will put it in Chat as I have no idea where else it should go. It’s a pen and ink sketch. I will be amazed if anyone can help, but who knows?

In the two pics posted by @staybyyou the teacher has a faint mark on the left side of her neck .
I also don't think the nose is right but bouquet lady definitely has a birthmark in a not dissimilar position.

She’s wearing a two piece, not a dress. - as Dahliasrule points out - definitely wearing separates.

Fascinating!

Going by the glass in the door - I would say 1960s. My parents had such glass in a house built then.

If it's definitely Wantage then the paper as already said would be the Wantage and Grove Herald. Until Local Govt. reorganisation in 1974 it was the North Berks Herald when Wantage, Didcot and Abingdon got shunted into Oxfordshire.

There was a lot of housing locally built by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, which employed a lot of people from Wantage. Could it be one of their houses. This would make it late 1950s or 1960s.

I think she's wearing a dress with a matching jacket over it. I stand by my previous comment that it's a homemade dress from a Simplicity pattern. Home dressmaking was very usual then.

@foreverbasil ah , dress with a matching jacket .I hadn't thought of that . You could well be right !

If it is Mrs King, presumably she would have been in her 50s in the early 1960s school photo. Certainly under the retirement age of 60 for women but old enough to have completely white hair. That would put her at the right age for a golden wedding anniversary in the early 70s if she married in her early 20s, as was the norm.

I know people looked older at a younger age, from today's perspective, but the man has that fleshiness of the nose that happens in older men. And saggy neck skin (poor fella, hope I'm not analysed online in the future 😄) so he looks mid-70s, I think. I have nothing useful to contribute though, just enjoying the detective work.

@SwedishEdith I agree. This is a couple in their 70s - almost certainly

I love this mystery. I think the white patch is render and the window to the right of the door is a shallow bay window, which is why the angles look off. I recognise the shape of the window handle from older houses too.

I don’t think that’s the same woman in the photo, Mrs king, unfortunately.

Probably going too far now 😀

My photo editing skills though eh?! 😀

@KThnxBye but but ... look at the smile lines on each side of her face! Clutching at straws!

I think the window on the right is recessed from the door/left window as the left side of the frame is hidden. Possibly an L shaped front?

I'm sure they aren't the same woman. Different nose, different shaped mouth, different eye angles, ageing wouldn't account for those changes. At that time there were loads of women with that style hair and women didn't tend to dye their hair then. I'm also sure it isn't a diamond anniversary, even if they'd married at 16 they'd have to be 76 and they're not that old.

You could try and track down Richard King?

source: https://www.faringdon.org/memories-of-faringdon.html

My guess would be late 60’s to 70’s based on the blinds in the window.

There are quite a few bungalows in Grove that look like they could possibly fit the bill, around Vale Avenue, Cherry Tree Close and Hawthorne Crescent.

I've literally just been doing the same on street view 😀

My parents bought a house in this style, brick, with the timber cladding, in 1971, so the timeline would fit. The edge of the estate looks to be surrounded by trees too so perhaps you'll find the house?

My Mum kept the same glasses frames for about 20 years - maybe they were sturdier back then. So not sure they can date it. But her stright skirt and geometric look seems post mary quant to me - very stylish!

I spent hours in Wantage on street view last night. 😂

These Grove bungalows look a close match. I've not found a style where there's a 2 brick wide wall either side of the front door yet. 17 Linden Crescent was close but the left wall is only 1 brick wide and the right one too wide

I’ve changed my mind and agree that the man is in his 70s, having analysed his neck and ears further 😄

To me the lady looks younger though - early sixties, but maybe she just has a youthful smile.

Loving the possibly bungalow and photo match possibilities!

That is true - I don’t think my grandparents ever changed their dress sense really.

Birth mark on the ladies necks .Both ladies to my mind.

If you have the original, is there anything written on the back?