Sepia Saturday 134: Normanton "Rec"

The photo prompt for Sepia Saturday this week titled, "Autriche Vienne," is a glass negative under the by-line of pioneer French photojournalist and press agent Charles Chusseau-Flaviens, borrowed from the George Eastman House collection on Flickr, a resource that I've often referred to myself. It was chosen by Marilyn aka Little Nell who has been very capably caretaking Sepia Saturday for the last few weeks while our usual host Alan was away.

Belvedere Gardens, Wien, October 1989
Image © 1989 Brett Payne
Fellow contributer Rob from Amersfoort has confirmed what I already suspected, that it was taken in the magnificent Belvedere Gardens in Wien (Vienna), which I had the good fortune to visit in 1989 and again in 1993. The wall in the background is that of the Convent of the Salesian Sisters, the dome of which is clearly visible at the right of my photo. Apart from the conical conifers in the sunken garden which have disappeared, and some extra ivy on the wall, little has changed over the last century.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Albumen on glass plate negative by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
(Image reversed) Collection of Brett Payne
Just as that image stirred memories, so did the recent purchase which I have as my contribution this week, although in a somewhat different manner. Like the photograph of a Viennese woman pushing her baby in an elaborate pram through the Belvedere gardens, mine too is an albumen on glass negative, showing children in a playground and including several prams or pushchairs. There are few clues to where it was taken - although it was accompanied by another glass slide clearly titled as being from Derby - and the view seemed very familiar. Once the purchase arrived I scanned it and started wading through the few books of Derby photographic views that I own, in particular the two volumes of WW Winter Collections, Maxwell Craven's Keene's Derby and Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 466 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © Rod Jewell from Yesterday's Derby
It didn't take long for me to locate the image I had remembered, and my purchase proved to be exactly the same scene as that of Normanton Recreation Ground in one of a series of four postcards (Nos. 465-468) produced by F.W. Scarratt in 1911. The playground was opened on 4 September 1909, and the photographs could been taken any time between then and their presumed 1911 publishing date. The example illustrated in Rod Jewell's book was posted on 30 August 1911, with this charming message:

Dear Daddy, Thank you for your PC, This is where I see-saw. I do so like it. With lots of love, Mary.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 467 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © Rod Jewell from Yesterday's Derby
Postcard number 467 is a similar view of the same playground, probably taken just a few minutes before or after number 466. This image shows even more prams, including a rather small one in the foreground, presumably containing a doll, but I could find no no see-saws. Jewell notes that the boy in shorts on the right hand side must have been trespassing, as this was a "girls only" playground, and the boys' one was separate.

My grandfather Leslie Payne (1892-1975) grew up in New Normanton, but by 1909 he would have been a little old for playgrounds. His younger brother Harold Victor Payne (1898-1921) was then 11, so could easily have been in the boys' section nearby, while his cousins Harry Payne (1906-1974) and Clarence Benfield Payne (1907-1982) might well have been occupants of one of the prams, perhaps attended by one of their aunts Lily Payne (1882-1968) or Helen Payne (1883-1933). It seems likely my grandmother Ethel Brown (1894-1978) or one of her three younger brothers would also have been frequent visitors to the Normaton Rec.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 468 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
A third postcard in the series (I haven't yet found an image of number 466) has a more general view of the "Rec," as it was commonly termed. Young trees are widely spaced on either side of a broad path, bordered by a wide expanse of lawns, and with the park pavilion in the background. The view includes several women and children out for a stroll, the former wearing the wide-brimmed hats so fashionable in the pre-War years, and a man seated on a park bench who is either lifting is straw boater to the passing ladies or shielding his eyes from the low afternoon sun.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
I was a little surprised at the wide variety of perambulators seen in these images, demonstrating that the ornate versions seen in studio portraits weren't necessarily just studio props.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
The small pavilion at the back of the playground, looking suspiciously like a railway carriage - Midland Railways' carriage works were located not far away from Normanton Rec - is probably where the mothers are sheltering.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
I was also intrigued by the presence of another, slightly older, boy in this photograph. I think he's getting bored with being ordered around by those two bossy girls, and is about to poke his eye out with that large stick. Perhaps readers would like to come up with a caption or explanation of their own for this playground vignette?

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Judging by the "tab" visible at the left hand edge of this glass plate negative - probably an artefact from the camera used to take the photograph - I believe this must be one of Scarratt's originals, or possibly a roughly contemporary copy made from the original for production purposes. By 1911 Scarratt had been producing postcards for only eight years, but had built up an extensive catalogue of views to rival the much larger regional or nation-wide publishers. He was Derby's first picture postcard publisher, and was in business until 1938. How an original example of his work ended up on eBay, I've no idea, but I count myself fortunate to have chanced on this fragment of Derby's postcard history.