This (18.2.17) is an amazing group photo because it includes various people who rarely were seen together, notably my mother, Gwen Archer (who is called “Molly” in the caption, and hated that name, though given to her [as a familiar name] by her mother), and Uncle Arthur (Archer)’s wife Rosie. They just didn’t have anything in common, except marriage into the Archer family - and that wasn’t enough for my mother! The photo also includes my identical twin sisters aunts: Olive and Elisabeth, who are actually standing next to each other. They truly were extremely hard to distinguish and used this fact to cause embarrassment/amusement, when appropriate, though it caused me difficulty more than once - being someone who has a very low threshold for distinguishing and recognising people.
This graphic also includes both me and my two brothers Michael and Edward (then called “Robert”), which is simply the other one of his ‘christened’ christian names. Edward is aged 9 in this shot. He rarely came to family gatherings of this kind beyond his teenage years.
This is just over a year after Archer Cowley’s centenary in March 1957, so I assume that this was a celebration of something else, perhaps a particular birthday, but I haven’t worked out whose yet. Grandpa William Archer was born in 1878 so he was 80 in 1958, but his birthday was in October. Perhaps this was an early birthday party for him.
Another interesting aspect of this family photo is ‘relative ages’ as between the various family groups: 1) Arthur Archer’s family; 2) Fred Archer’s family (including me); and 3) Olive Archer.Bennett’s family; 4) Willliam Archer’s two other daughters: Nora and Elizabeth being (and remaining) unmarried. Broadly the differences were simply due to Arthur marrying in about 1924, long long before his brother Fred in 1936, and his sister Olive in 1942 - a difference of 18 years or thereabouts, which is reflected in the ages of the offspring in the families. Arthur’s eldest daughter Eileen, who married a GI and went to live inl the US in about 1946, is not here for precisely that reason. Ditto her next-eldest sister Pamela, who married in 1959. And Arthur’s sons Rowland and Bryan were likewise married long before my brother Michael or I, and ditto before Paul, Clive and Gillian Bennett, the children of Olive Archer and Oswald Bennett. Artthur Archer’s youngest daughter, Anne, is sitting next to her mother, Rosie, in the front row at the LHS end.
Anne Archer died earlier this year (2017) or just before, and her eldest sister Eileen about a year before in about January 2016. So, all Arthur Archer’s 3 sons and 3 daughters are now dead. Likewise of course Arthur himself (in about 1976) and his brother Fred (in 1991) and his sisters Elisabeth, Nora and Olive, in that order. So, the only ones left today from this group, are Michael and me and Edward (Robert) Archer, plus Paul, Clive and Gillian Bennett (all married with families).
In 1958, Rowland Archer and Bryan Archer were working for Archer Cowley & Co, on the vans, and Michael and I joined them occasionally during the summer holidays, as vacation jobs. Likewise of course Arthur and Fred Archer were ‘Transport Manager’ and ‘General Manager’ respectively. William Archer had the top job in the firm as ‘Governing Manager’ (or some such designation), and his three daughers, Nora, Olive and Elizabeth, also drew directorship salaries all their working lives and attended many board meetings, though, as far as I know, not contributing anything else to the running of the firm. So AC&Co provided incomes for jiust about all those present in this photo, though not the entire income in some cases e.g. the Bennetts, for whom Oswald Bennett was an accountant with Thornton Baker of Oxford. So, the good old family firm was realy doing its stuff looking after the family. And for that, I, for one, am extremely grateful, to James Archer and his successors - almost sixty years later. My mother, Gwen, for all that she was in many ways (but not all) an extremely wise woman (who lived to 100 years and a quarter), always took the view that AC&Co were ‘all very well, for providing an income, but that was as far as its merit went, and even there, much of the income was given away without the recipient doing much if any work’. Which (latter) remark had some truth, and was the cause of the firm not appealing as a career to at least Paul Bennett, who had trained for some years at Harrods Depositories in London specifically (as I understood it at the time) for that purpose.
(Added 30.8.17): Of Arthur Archer’s six children, two girls (Eileen and Pam) both resident in the US are not here, of course, and neither is their brother John who was resident in Australia, I think, by 1958, so was likewise unable to come to this gathering of the clan. Interesting that, of the present generation (my generation) our daughter Helen is resident in NZ and my brother Michael’s son Stuart and his mother Claudia are both resident in Australia.