Musings on photos past 3 - James Pilkington Belshaw

I am absolutely awash with paper, photos and memorabilia of one type or another.

Over on the New England Australia blog, New England's Air Wars records one piece I found.

This first photo here is one taken of my father at Mayfield in 1926. He was then 18. I had to look Mayfield up. It is a small farming settlement about 35k from Ashburton on the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand's South Island.

One of the difficulties I face is simply organising the material to make sense of it. For the moment, it's still all very scatter gun.

 

The next photo comes from a post of Paul Barratt's, New England University Rugby Team 1939. Comments follow the photo. 

   Dad arrived at the newly established New England University College in 1938, the first staff member to do so. He had played Rugby at provincial level in New Zealand and became, among other things, foundation coach of the Rugby team.

Paul identified those in the photo as:  

Back Row: Lewis Border, Consett Davis, Max Hartwell, John Rafferty, Jim Belshaw (Coach), Alf Maiden, Les Titterton, Frank Rickwood, Ken James
Middle Row: Ralph Crossley, Paul Barratt, Pat Thompson, Alan Sutherland, Peter Durie
Front Row: Ed Scalley, Harry Savage

Paul's post includes details on the players. His father is second on the left in the middle row.

The next and final photo is a studio shot of Dad taken at Solomon's Studios in October 1942, so three years after the football team photo.

You can see what I mean by scattergun. I really need to spend more time organising the material before rushing to post.

In organising material, I am sorting by time, but also by country and particular family line.

I am also trying to add notes so that the photos make more sense.