Sororal Snaps

There are some nice pictures of Sonia and Susie taken during the later stages of the war, when they and Audrey were living in Salisbury, and later on near Chichester, whilst Ron of course was still on active service in Burma. But, like the three below, they were small (only about 1½" square, monochrome or sepia), and didn't generally enlarge very successfully – this was still the age of the "Box Brownie", which was all that most people could afford in that straitened era. And the camera would generally only be brought out for posed pictures on special occasions.

Audrey and the two girls joined Ron in Ireland in late 1946 or early 1947, after the purchase of Ardnagashel – which was still uninhabitable after decades of neglect. So they put up temporarily in Glengarriff, first at the Eccles Hotel, then at the Golf Links Hotel, and finally in Glengarriff Lodge (the erstwhile hunting lodge of the Earls of Bantry). So the three pictures that follows were taken at some time during this period (though the pleasant-looking woman in the second picture is unidentified).

The next picture would most probably have been in the Donkey Field at Ardnagashel, on the far side of the drive from the house itself. Bigger pictures had evidently become possible ...

And at about the same date

Marjorie and George Gleadow lived at Gortnavalig House, just up the road to Bantry, first drive-way on the right from Ardnagashel, and Oona Shelswell-White was of course born and brought up in Bantry House.

The station wagon, or estate car, seems always to have been the vehicle of choice at Ardnagashel, for obvious reasons of practicality, and so I originally thought that the monster saloon below might have belonged to fellow parents, possibly depositing their respective offspring at boarding school some years on.

But I now (Jan 2016) stand corrected – the other three children were in fact Karslake cousins: in decreasing order of age, Sarah, David and Elizabeth.

It's certainly a classic machine, but out of interest, what make and model was it? I'm no petrolhead, and the bonnet/hood mascot is surprisingly unidentifiable, but my best guess is a 1938 Pontiac 6 series 38, or just possibly a 1938 Buick special model 48 – there was evidently a lot of copycatting between the various US manufacturers.