The last day of Becky’s May squares, and I thought this photo of my aunt, Evelyn Ashford, somehow sums up the themes of renewal and moving forward. It shows such spirit, doesn’t it; a sense of hopefulness and forging ahead.
I’m guessing it was taken in tough times too, around the start of the war in 1939. Evelyn would have been seventeen. But it’s possible it was taken earlier. Her very ‘grown-up’ tweeds may be explained by the fact she was employed in the dress department of a big Guildford store. She had started her working career aged fourteen, apprenticed to the local draper in Cranleigh where the Ashfords lived.
I don’t know who the photographer was, possibly my father, but a bit of sleuthing has revealed the location as the trig point on Pitch Hill, Surrey, not far from Cranleigh. Evelyn is taking flight over the South Downs.
Evelyn Mary Ashford 1923 – 2013
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You can find her story in an earlier post The Many Faces of Evelyn Mary Ashford
And more at:
