Taken in the back garden at 17 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford in about August 1949.
So, this is my brother Edward’s christening. I am the lad in the front row looking very sheepish, with my grandpa William’s arm over my shoulder, my elder brother Michael is looking at us and has obviously just made a well-chosen remark and is waiting to see if I have the courage to reply (which it looks as if, in the circumstances, I haven’t). Edward is behaving himself in our mother, Gwen’s, arms. The other people are:
(Left to right): Back row: Uncle Raymond Penfold (Gwen’s younger brother), Ruth Kelgren, musical friend (viola and cello player) of Gwen’s, Reginald Kissak, Methodist minister at Wesley Memorial Church, where the christening must have taken place;
Middle row: My ‘Grandad’ Frank Penfold, his wife, my ‘Gran’ Rosa Penfold, Aunty (great aunty really) Rose Archer, her brother William GR Archer, my ‘Granpa’;
Front row: my brother Michael, our mother Gwen - holding Edward, and me.
(Added 2.12.15): Thoughts about dates: Gwen was about 40 when this photo was taken, and she lived to be 100 and one quarter, dying on 31.10.2009, when the little lad in her arms in this photo, was aged 60. Fairly remarkable in itself, though these days not particularly so.