The Story Behind A Picture

The photo of my parents, accompanied by my brother's dog, Susie, was taken in the front drive of the last house we had in Mombasa, which was located almost at the end of Cliff Avenue and had a superb view out across the entrance to Kilindini Harbour. They are standing in the drive with Cliff Avenue beyond them. The tree with the red flowers is a Uganda flame.

It's an unusual photo in that it's in colour. We never had a camera that could take colour pictures so this was taken by someone else. It may have been my aunt Dorothy- she was known in the family as Dolly -  who visited them in the early months of 1959, as I know she had a colour camera. Further, in her 'Life' of my father my mother writes, "Dolly took a lot of snaps of our visit and these we have amongst our transparencies."

Further still, my father would have been 57 then, and my mother 47, which looks about right.

The picture was taken either on a Saturday or Sunday as my father is in shorts. He often went to the office on a Saturday morning, being much involved with sport at the Sports Club through the lunchtime and afternoon. Only very rarely did he go to work on a Sunday. My mothers frock also suggests it is Saturday: had it been Sunday she would have been a little more formally dressed as she would be going to church.

It's a disorganised picture, which suggests it was taken almost as an afterthought, perhaps when my aunt, if it was she, was leaving to return to England. The car would have been parked to the left of where the photographer is standing, or it may be that they were waiting for the company driver, Gabriel, to bring the car from the office. He would then take the ladies to the port - Dolly sailed 'home' on the BI ship SS Kenya - and then dropped my mother back at the house when she'd seen her sister-in-law off.

I think that most people who are taking such a photograph would make some effort to organise their subjects. That they aren't organised again suggest that Dorothy took it as she was a retiring and somewhat nervous lady, the sort who would never boss anyone around.

Elsewhere in her 'Life' of my father, my mother wrote that Dolly was in Mombasa for the Queen's birthday, which was on April 21st.

So, I would guess that this picture was taken in April of 1959, on a Saturday, the day the photographer, Dolly, was to board the SS Kenya for passage 'home' through the Suez Canal.