A Richmond (Yorkshire) 'Blow-Up'

My mother, Audrey Carr (née Blease), aged two, with her mother Julia Blease (née Mattison, later Ghent)

Antonioni's 1966's film Blow-Up is a firm favourite of mine, so much so that I named my book of short stories inspired by details in old postcards Blow-Ups. I've blogged about that before and I've also blogged about the wonderful shop that my great-grandparents ran in Richmond, Yorkshire, before WWII: Mattison's Bazaar. In this post I'm going to combine the two.

The urge to write about our family history was strong in both my mother, Audrey Carr, and her mother, Julia Ghent (pictured together, above). And it seems it's just as strong in me, a need that nags away at me and demands to be fulfilled. In fact I've been planning to write about my mum and other members of my family for years and have been accumulating memories and photographs and source material until I now have a mountain of anecdotes and insights just begging to be written up -- except that I've made the task so daunting, now, that I don't seem to be able to get a foothold on that memory-mountain and it's proving hard to get down to the job of turning it all into a book. Where to start? How far back should I go, in order to set up the back story that will make sense of my mother and me and our strange, funny, sad entanglement?

Really, I just need to jump in. I can sort out the final shape of the story once I've written it! So, as I way of coaxing myself into making a start, here's a Richmond 'Blow-Up' which I find very pleasing. My great-grandparents John (usually known as Jack) and Julia Mattison were the figureheads of my family when I was growing up and it seemed as though everything we stood for as a family flowed from them. My great grandfather was a skilled tinsmith who could make almost anything out of sheet metal. My great grandmother was a born businesswoman, tremendously hardworking and singleminded. She ran an ambitious shop, which she named Mattison's Bazaar, in the 1920s and 1930s. It occupied two sites in Richmond market place at different times - I'm not sure of the exact dates when it was at each premises. In the map above, I've coloured them in: the yellow block is next door to the King's Head, the grandest hotel and drinking spot in Richmond. But today we're focusing on the pink location, down at the far end of the market place, next to the much smaller Richmond Hotel. The address was no. 30 The Market Place and it was a long narrow plot, with my great grandfather's tinsmithing workshop down at the bottom, near the little cut-through known as 'Waterloo' (although I see it's now labelled 'Waterloo Street' on Google StreetView).
     The sepia postcard above dates from 1936 and shows Trinity Church (famous for having shops built right up against it) and the Market Cross.This is as close as I can get to the same view on Google StreetView today:

But if we zoom in between the church tower and the obelisk of the Cross it's possible to make out Mattison's Bazaar:

The fascia reading 'Mattison's Bazaar' can be seen fairly clearly above the shop window of the shop on the left. Here's more or less the same closer-in shot on Google StreetView:

In the more recent shot, the shop that was the Bazaar is the central red-brick building, one of two occupied by the Yorkshire Trading Company (in fact I've taken it from 2018 StreetView as there were less cars in that version). In May 2023 (time of writing), it's actually Elixir restaurant.
     It's thrilling for me to see the shop during the period when it was in operation. The rather grand door to the right of the shop window was the entrance to the living quarters above the shop. And I think this derelict structure must be the remains of Jack Mattison's workshop behind the shop:

Here he is inside it (the figure on the right), with his two employees (one of whom was Les Fowler -- on the far left):

He had a good reputation as a maker of metal goods such as pans and kettles. Here's a letter from a satisfied customer (in 1950) who wants to buy another teapot from him. Ms Singh lived a long way away, in Cambridge, so she must have rated Jack's workmanship. I love the way the letter found him even though the address was only approximate. He was very well-known in the town.

But let's continue with our 'blow-up'. We can't really zoom in much further as there isn't much more to be seen in the details of the postcard but... if we focus on the shop door, between the two windows, we can see a vague shape:

Could it be the pale oval of a woman's face, with a white collar below it? I think it could. And there's a reason why I feel fairly confident about it. My great grandmother was a stickler for customer service and always liked a member of her staff to stand at the door of the shop to welcome customers in -- more often than not she would do this job herself (see below). When my granny, Julie, was obliged to leave school at fourteen so that she could work in the Bazaar (something she resented bitterly but, alas, it wasn't at all unusual for the times), she also spent many hours on duty at the shop entrance:

In the right-hand photo, Julie looks as though she has only recently left school; she's older in the picture with her mother. I definitely think that fuzzy oval in the 1936 postcard could be my great-grandmother's face, don't you? In 1936, she would have been about 52 and Julie 26, so I think that photo on the left is of around the same date. I adore the glimpses of the lovely things that were for sale in the shop in these images: the beautiful dolls in particular. 
     These photos reconnect me with my family so powerfully. It's just the shot I needed to get me started with my memoir in earnest.

The Apprentice of Split Crow Lane -- The Story of the Carr's Hill Murder

My book, The Apprentice of Split Crow Lane, is published today, which is very exciting for me. It's a historical true crime book, which would be enjoyed by fans of Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Wicked Boy, but also by anyone who enjoyed the Serial podcast.
     I came across the story of the murder of a little girl while I was researching my own family history. The place where the murder was committed shared a family name and I had already traced my ancestors back to Gateshead and Heworth, both very close to Carr's Hill. There has long been a village on Gateshead Fell, just south of Gateshead, called Carr Hill but in the nineteenth century it became known as Carr's Hill because of its association with a family named Carr. This family are at the heart of the book.

I found this old photo amongst the pictures I salvaged from my Mum's garden shed. As the photographer was based in Gateshead, I thought it might show part of Gateshead, but Russell Lee has very kindly left a comment, below, to tell me that in fact it's the Black Gate in Newcastle. Judging by the dress worn by the woman in the centre of the image, it must date from the second half of the nineteenth century, perhaps even the 1860s when my book is set. Here she is blown up bigger:

Her dress is certainly of a shape that was worn in the 1860s. But what really fascinates me in this photo is the ghostly figure in the foreground. Every time I look at him, I think he might be a policeman. Here's a blow-up of him:

I think he must have moved while the photograph was being exposed, hence his rather insubstantial appearance, but could that be an early police tunic and helmet he's wearing? Here's a Victorian bobby for comparison:

It would be peculiarly apt if the figure were that of a policeman as I've become so immersed in various crimes committed in and around Gateshead in the 1860s. From arson to sectarian violence, sexual assault to murder, it's all in my book. The real policeman who oversaw efforts to rein in the lawless elements in Gateshead was Chief Constable John Elliott, seen here in a photo which I've kindly been given permission to use by George Marshall of www.gatesheadpolice.org:

John Elliott was known as 'The Journeyman' because of his long, steady career. In my book, he's kept very busy as he was not only in charge of police investigations but also of the fire service. As there were many acts of arson around Gateshead in the Autumn of 1865, he was often to be found at the head of the fire engine as it was pulled up the steep slopes of Gateshead Fell.
     I don't want to give too much away about the crime that's at the heart of my book, but I have done some serious detective work and have come up with some insights that add to what was known about the case originally. I found it completely compelling and am hoping that people who read it will be similarly drawn in.

The Apprentice of Split Crow Lane from Quercus imprint, riverrun

Claremont -- can anybody identify this house and children?

I found this photograph of a house called Claremont among my mother's things. I'm posting it here on the chance that someone may come across it and be able to identify either the house or the children. I'd love to know where it is and what the connection is to my family. I think there must be one. Thanks!