It’s time once again for our monthly round up of #PhotoFriday tweets, where we look at images from the local studies collections across the county, which you can find on www.picturethepast.org.uk .
December is, for many, party season! So we started off our December tweets with a visit to the Drill Hall in Derby on the 25 May 1889. This is the party for Mr and Mrs Wright Bemrose, welcoming them home from their honeymoon. It certainly couldn’t be described as a small quiet affair with what looks like hundreds of guests. We don’t envy having to cater for that many – or indeed having to wash up afterwards!
To match the dipping temperatures our next #PhotoFriday image was a wintry scene in the 1930s. Kinder Downfall is a famous waterfall in the Derbyshire Peak District, but instead of majestically cascading off the edge of the Kinder plateau, here the River Kinder has completely frozen in the icy weather, turning the waterfall into a mass of huge icicles. If you look closely you can see three intrepid ramblers. We’re sure their clothes must have seemed warm at the time but it makes us very grateful for our thermal layers!
By the time of our next tweet much of the county had experienced some snow. So we went to the Amber Valley Camp at Woolley Moor in 1947, famously the year of what people called “the big snow”. Here we have Rosemary Todd, Josie Penty and Anne Lewis about to enjoy a spot of sledging in the wintry weather. If you look in the background you can see the icicles hanging off the roofs. Like the gentlemen in the previous picture, we don’t envy the girls in what seem to us nowadays, as not particularly warm clothes for the snowy weather.
Christmas was only a couple of days away from our next tweet, so we travelled back to the 1950s to the Ray Arms public house in Heanor to enjoy their Christmas decorations. Who can remember those paper garlands that looked small until you pulled them and they seemed to stretch out forever? We’re just not too sure about the Father Christmas face staring down from the top shelf of the bar – it looks more creepy than jolly!
Our final #PhotoFriday tweet for December fell on the 6th Day of Christmas. Who knows the famous Christmas song ‘The Twelve days of Christmas’? According to the song on this day the ‘true love’ sent six geese a-laying. We couldn’t find 6 geese so we decided on one famous one instead. This is the ‘Boy and Goose’ statue, familiar to many Derby folk. The statue began its life on the Market Place but was moved in 1933 to the River Gardens. The statue stayed there until 1971when it was removed and put into storage, which is when we believe this photograph was taken. After being refurbished in 1977 it was put in various locations in and around the newly opened Assembly Rooms until it finally came to rest in its current home – the Sir Peter Hilton Memorial Garden, fittingly close to its original home on the Market Place.
There ends our selection of December’s #PhotoFriday. Why not join us on Twitter and see what we have picked to start 2023? We can promise you some 1960s memories and something for the cheese lovers amongst you. Meanwhile we wish you all a very ‘Happy New Year’.
Derbyshire Record Office 