I see so many discarded photos at auction that I mindlessly flip through them, not expecting to find anything new. I’ve seen the studio portrait shots, the family on vacation shots and the Christmas shots.
Imagine my surprise this week when I flipped through some framed photos and actually came across something that was unusual. The first was a black and white photo of a mother and her young son glued to a board, her holding an open book.
That was not so different. What distinguished it was a verse printed in an adult script to the right of the photo. It was written in the voice of the boy, and it began …
“Just before I go to bed
Mummy reads to me,
And then she sings and all my head
Gets sleepy as can be.”
Curious, I kept digging in the box to see if there were others like it, and I found three more. The boy was alone in those photos, and they were also accompanied by verse. I could imagine all four photos hanging together, proudly, on a wall in the mother’s living room or in the child’s room. They were testimony to a mother’s love.
I initially wondered if the verses were hers or were copied from an actual poem. In reading further, I found a line in one poem indicating that she had written them for her son, who looked to be about 4 years old.
Finding these kinds of expressions (or just coming across photos in general) always gets my mind to wondering about who these people were. There was nothing printed on the photos or the paper that identified them. That’s usually the case with photos from the past; people and places are rarely identified. Likely because the folks who took the photos knew the people who were in them at the time, never thinking that the photos would outlast them and the names would be lost forever.
The pictures of the boy and his mother were among several groupings of photo albums and single photos on the auction tables that day. One pile included vintage proofs from a long-gone (I’m sure) studio in Harrisburg, PA.
I found the verses accompanying the mother-and-son photos pretty special. So I’m sharing them along with the photos:
Here’s the full verse from the first photo:
“Just before I go to bed
Mummy reads to me,
And then she sings and all my head
Gets sleepy as can be.”
There’s Penny wag and River-land,
And Sherwood at the dawn;
The Perez mouse, the Train that Could
Queen Anne’s Lace on the lawn.
This story’s ‘bout some brigands bold,
It’s really lots of fun!
When Mummy says it’s all been told
I wish she’d just begun.
The songs of moon-boats, stars and things
And cavaliers I know;
But most I like it when she sings
the sleepy Sweet and Low.”
(Note: Could the world “Sherwood” be referring to Alfred Noyes’ “A Song of Sherwood”?)
(You can listen to the song “Sweet and Low” here.)
“Spring’s here, Mum! I know it’s so
Come quickly and I’ll tell you why –
I tried to pick a dandelion
And found it was a butterfly.
Bingo and I have lots to do
We haven’t time to listen to more;
Before the sunshine day is through
We have the whole big world to explore!”
“This is my farm with the cows in the dells,
and the sheep on the hills with their tinkly bells,
The horses are patiently waiting for hay
So I’ll go on playing now if I may.
A farmer’s what I want to be
And fill my barn with wheat,
And milk the cows or feed the chicks,
And hear the stray lamb bleat.”
“I’m working hard and business-like,
Don’t interrupt me cuz
I’m scribbling lots and call it verse
The way my Mummy does.
Architecture is my line,
I build the modern way;
Houses made of all windows
So you can see the day.”
