Back to Canada on the ‘Old Reliable’

Almost a fortnight ago, in Hospital Blues, I wrote about my grandfather’s wounding at the Battle of Arras in August 1918, his subsequent recuperation back in England, and the desolating loss of his bride of one year, within days of his arriving home from the hospital.


1. Sergeant Leslie Payne (at left) and another, unidentified CEF sergeant aboard the HMT Olympic, January 1919 [1]
Among my aunt’s collection of family photos inherited from her father are a group of loose prints which include a series of eight snapshots taken on board a ship, some including soldiers in Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) uniforms. That they relate to my grandfather is clear since he appears in one of them, garbed in standard issue greatcoat and cap, similar to how he was in the image used in my previous article, standing in the snow, one hand in his pocket. The other soldier, also a sergent, is unidentified, but he looks vaguely familiar, so it may be that I've seen him previously in another of my grandfather's photos.


It is clear that the remainder of the images form a series taken on the same journey from the purple batch number "5 9" stamped on the back of the prints. I have assumed for some time that they were taken by Leslie or a friend on the journey back across the Atlantic to Canada immediately prior to his demobilisation in early 1919.


Leslie Payne's CEF Active Service Form, B.103
from The CEF Paper Trail
Upon returning to the Canadian Machine Gun Depot (CMGD) at Seaford in Sussex in late October, and with the war ending a couple of weeks later, duties must have been light. After another month there, Leslie was transferred to Kinmel Park, near Rhyl in North Wales – as shown by the final entry on his Active Service Form above - in advance of his repatriation to Canada.


Camp at Kinmel Park, early 1919
Marc Leroux, on his excellent Canadian Great War Project web site, described the conditions at Kinmel Park.

For the 17,400 troops at Kinmel Park, conditions were far from ideal. The days were filled with exercises that they thought meaningless, medical examinations, route marches and military discipline and training. For them the war was over and they didn’t see the need. They were anxious to return to Canada, not just to their families, but they also realized that the first soldiers home would have the pick of the available jobs, and no one wanted to come home from the war and be unemployed. At Kinmel Park, there was the military bureaucracy to overcome. Troops awaiting transport had to fill in some 30 different forms with approximately 360 questions. The food they were fed was bad; it had been compared to “pigswill”. At night, the troops had access to “Tin Town” a nearby group of shops and pubs that had inflated their prices to take advantage of the, comparatively, well paid Canadian soldier. After a month of these rates, many soldiers were broke.

HMT Olympic, c. 1919
Image courtesy of Library and Archives Canada
Leslie was one of the fortunate ones. Not long after New Year he was one of a large contingent who entrained for Southampton, where they boarded the HMT Olympic, sister ship of the ill-fated Titanic, according to his service records, around the 9th to 11th January 1919. Originally launched in 1911 and described at the time as the "largest vessel in the world," the Olympic had been commandeered by the British Admiralty and extensively refitted at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast to carry 6000 troops. The image above shows the "Old Reliable" as she became known during her wartime service, displaying a "dazzle" paint scheme and with soldiers lining the railings [2].


2.

3. On board the HMT Olympic, January 1919
The two images above, from my grandfather's set, show what appears to be the foredeck of the ship with soldiers standing around and lined up at the railings. To the right, in the second photo, are some buildings which demonstrate that the ship is berthed in port somewhere.


RMS Olympic berthed in New York, undated
This image shows the foredeck of the Olympic, when berthed in New York a few years earlier, probably prior to her being pressed into service for the war effort. The similarities are striking.


Wounded Canadians on Olympic entering Halifax, October 1916 [2]
This view is from David Gray's comprehensive study of the Olympic's service during the war, well worth a read if just for the first-hand accounts of living conditions aboard [2].


Canadian Troops Embarking for Canada on HMT Olympic

The still above is from a YouTube version of a clip from the Canadian film archive, Images of a Forgotten War, the original of which can be viewed here. About 45 seconds into the clip, the camera pans across the exact view of the Olympic's foredeck shown in Leslie's two photos, leaving me in no doubt that Leslie and friends were on the Olympic.


4. On board the HMT Olympic, January 1919 [1]
In these two photos from my grandfather's trip, possibly taken in opposing directions, four funnels and some of the lifeboats can be seen. Following the disastrous sinking of her sister ship the Titanic in 1912, and the public outrage at there not being enough lifeboats for all of the passengers and crew, the Olympic had been extensively rebuilt and lifeboats were now available for all. Presumably the later 1914-1915 refit, which included the addition of "a 4.7-inch gun at the bow and a 3-inch gun at the stern" also supplemented the number of lifeboats on board. The large gun seen in the photo at the head of this article must be one of the six 6-inch guns which were installed as added protection in early 1917.


5. On board the HMT Olympic, January 1919 [1]
In the background of this shot can be seen the spires of two churches. I wonder if it might be possible to identify these, and therefore decide whether the photographs were taken in Southampton docks, prior to their departure, or in Halifax, after their arrival. My insticts suggest the photos would most likely have been taken soon after their arrival on board, before the novelty of shipboard life had worn off. A postcard of the Olympic and Mauretania berthed in Southampton (here) has a similar church spire in the background, but I'm sure there were church spires in Halifax too.


6.
A further two views show more detail from the deck of the ship, including funnels, cranes, ventilation shafts, railings, lifeboats, benches, cables, pipes and plenty more to delight the naval enthusiast.


7.
This is my favourite photograph from the entire series - a real shipboard shot. Sadly, there are no more in which my grandfather or his friend can be identified.


8.
My guess is that this last photo was taken shortly after they left the Ocean Pier at Southampton Docks, as the Olympic was sailing down Southampton Water towards The Solent, and hence to the Channel, the North Atlantic, and Halifax. An expert in ships of the period might be able to identify the vessel being passed. Coincidentally, Larry Burgus posted a photograph of a very similar ship to this, one in which his father was sent to the war, as a Sepia Saturday article a couple of weeks ago.


Portion of the HMT Olympic's passenger manifest
Southampton-Halifax 18th January 1919
After a trans-Atlantic crossing of about 8 to 10 days, they arrived at Halifax on January 18th at 11.30 am. The passenger manifest (above) includes three other sergeants from the CMGD, both from Winnipeg, and I wonder if one of these could be the soldier pictured with Leslie. They are:
- 440699 Sgt. Valmore Orville Forest, CMGD, enlisted 53rd Bn, Winnipeg
- 859574 Sgt. Charles Murray, CMGD, enlisted 179th Bn, Winnipeg
- 531662 A/Sgt John Mackney Roe, CMGD, enlisted 11th Fld Amb., Winnipeg

Post Script 14 June 2011


Plan of HMT Olympic showing photo locations
(Click image for larger version)
Image © and courtesy of Ralph Currell
This plan of the HMT Olympic, overlaid with the positions and fields of view of my grandfather's photographs, was very kindly sent to me by Ralph Currell, who has an interest in the ship's wartime career.

As might be imagined, due to wartime restrictions on photography there are many areas that are poorly documented, such as the armament, extra life rafts, and so forth. The images on your blog show a number of details that don't often appear in photographs ... they mostly pertain to the armament added to the ship during the war. If you look at my drawing you can see there are six guns (four forward and two on the after part of the ship). Your photos show an interesting stage where the forward guns have been removed (you can barely see one of the deck mountings in cllpayne21.jpg) but the after ones are still in place (as seen in cllpayne20.jpg). The shots of the lifeboats are also instructive. Because of the large numbers of troops carried, the "Olympic" had quite a few collapsible boats and rafts added to her ordinary civilian outfit, and these photos give some clues as to where they were stowed on deck.

You'll notice the second photo (cllpayne21.jpg) is marked as "mirrored". That particular photo is reversed left-to-right -- presumably whoever originally made the print put the negative upside-down ... Most of the photos seem to have been made while the "Olympic" was in port, but cllpayne26.jpg shows the lifeboat davits swung outboard, suggesting the ship is underway.

One curious thing I noticed about the unknown steamer (cllpayne27.jpg) is that the ship is "dressed" with flags running fore and aft via the masthead. I wonder if she was saluting the "Olympic's" arrival, or if it was due to some other festive occasion ... Regarding the photo of the smaller ship, it would probably be difficult to identify. It looks like a fairly typical cargo steamer, of which there would have been many in service. I can't make out any funnel markings that would identify the owners. The landscape in the background might give some clue as to the location though.

Many thanks Ralph, for the interesting information, and the image, which certainly does help to imagine his time on board. It must have been pretty cramped, with all those additional passengers.

References

[1] Eight photographs taken aboard HMT Olympic, January 1919, Loose paper prints, approx. 64 x 42 mm, Collection of Barbara Ellison.

[2] Gray, David R. (2002) Carrying Canadian Troops: The Story of RMS Olympic as a First World War Troopship, in Canadian Military History, Volume 11, Number 1, Winter 2002, pp. 54-70.

[3] RMS Olympic, from Wikipedia.

Sepia Saturday 75: Hospital Blues

Alan Burnett’s photo prompt for this week’s edition of Sepia Saturday is a most atmospheric postcard view of the interior of a building in Oxford, taken from the collection of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Archives. Forgive me if I reproduce a portion of it here, but it is particularly germane to my own submission.


Although the precise location is not immediately evident, it seems to be an orchestra room in the Town Hall, with a large pipe organ forming a grand backdrop. There are eighteen men seated and standing around the room, apparently watching the final play in a game of snooker or billiards. Apart from the postcard’s caption, which refers to the 3rd Southern General Hospital, the main clue to who these men are lies in their clothing. Six of the men are wearing ordinary suits, the remaining twelve are garbed in what are generally termed “hospital blues.”


An image of this postcard view is included within the Oxfordshire County Council’s Photographic Archive, the location described as St Aldate’s, Oxford, and a further view which includes the billiards table on the stage in the background demonstrates that the entire Town Hall was converted, even the stalls. The Woodrow Wilson Archive has a similar view with somewhat better definition. A post on the Great War Forum suggests that the Town Hall Section had 205 beds reserved for malaria cases amongst the Other Ranks. The single stripe on the arm of the man about to strike the ball with his cue confirms that he was a Lance Corporal, and indeed an “other rank.”


"I look pretty thin, Eh!"
Paper print, Collection of Barbara Ellison, Coloured by Andre Hallam
My grandfather Charles Leslie Lionel Payne (1892-1975) and his younger brother Harold Victor Payne (1898-1921) both spent time wearing hospital blues. My grandfather served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), having immigrated to Canada in 1912, initially with the Canadian Army Service Corps (CASC) and then with the Canadian Machine Gun Corps (CMGC). Harold joined the British Army in England towards the end of the war and served with the Tank Corps. The photograph above, accurately coloured by Andre Hallam with the expert historical assistance of various members of the Great War Forum, shows Harold (sitting at centre) and friends wearing hospital blues at an unknown location. “I look pretty thin, Eh!” is handwritten in pencil on the reverse.


"Wounded Soldiers - I've met 'em. Yes sir."
Paper print, Collection of Barbara Ellison
Unfortunately his British Army service documents did not survive the Blitz - some 60% of the British Army’s Great War service records were destroyed by German bombs in 1940, and the remainder badly damaged – so it is difficult to be sure of his movements. A postcard sent to his family in Derby in November 1919 shows that he was then "in Cologne awaiting demob[ilization]" from the British Army on the Rhine (BAOR), was “quite well” and recorded hopefully, “guess I shan’t be long now.” I suspect that he took ill shortly after, before he could be demobilised. He died on 1 May 1921 at Derby. His mother was devastated, and although she would outlive him by a decade, I get the impression that she never really recovered from the shock. I have yet to order his death certificate, which may provide clues to his illness, and state whether or not he was still in the Army at that time.


Sgt. Leslie Payne, Winter 1918/1919
Paper print, Collection of Barbara Ellison
Sgt. Leslie Payne, CMGC, Winter 1918/19, in England or Canada
My grandfather’s CEF service records, on the other hand, have survived more or less intact although, sadly, I have no photographs of him wearing hospital blues. The portrait above, in which he wears his army greatcoat adorned with sergeant’s stripes, was probably taken in the Winter of 1918/19, after his recuperation had ended. I obtained a copy of his records from the Library & Archives of Canada some years ago. From this treasure trove of shorthand scribblings, indecipherable abbreviations and obtuse acronyms, and together with transcripts of the CMG Corps history and the War Diaries for his unit, I was eventually able to piece together a detailed itinerary of his movements.


Constance May Hogg, Christmas 1913
Postcard, Collection of Barbara Ellison
By the spring of 1918, my grandfather had been in the Canadian Army for almost three and a half years, two and a half years of this on the Western Front, and two years as a machine gunner. He had fought at the Battles of St. Eloi Craters (April 1916), Mount Sorrel (June 1916), Flers-Courcelette (September 1916), Vimy Ridge (April 1917), Lens (June 1917) and Passchendaele (November 1917) and appears to have survived unscathed – at least physically - with not a single day of sickness or other misadventure recorded. During a period of rest and recuperation Leslie was granted two weeks of leave on 26th November, and he lost no time in heading home. Four days later, having been granted permission to do so by his Commanding Officer, he married his sweetheart “Con” at Chester, and was back with his unit by 14th December.


Canon de 380 m/m capturé par les Australiens près de Chuignes et destiné au bombardement d'Amiens
Postcard with 1930 postmark, Collection of Barbara Ellison
On 20th April 1918, as part of the overall reorganization of the CMGC being undertaken at that time, Leslie was promoted to the rank of Sergeant, and thus put in charge of a machine gun section, comprising two Vickers machine guns with crews. On 9 July he was sent to the Canadian Corps School on a four week long training course. He probably returned to his unit just in time to participate in the very successful Battle of Amiens, on 8th, 9th and 10th August.


AMIENS - AUG 11 1918 - STATION PLATFORM BUFFET
Paper doily, Collection of Barbara Ellison
No. 2 Company of the 2nd Battalion CMGC was relieved and withdrawn from the line into reserve at Caix, allowing Leslie and his crew to enjoy the luxury of real food in Amiens on the evening of 11th August. After a week of rest, during which time the ranks were brought back up to strength by very welcome, but green, reinforcements, the entire Canadian Corps was moved back to the Arras Front. Leslie’s company arrived at their billets in the village of Monts-en-Ternois at noon on the 21st, and was bussed to the front lines the following day.


According to the corps history, the massive task of the Canadian Corps was to drive in south of the Scarpe towards Cambrai, to break the Quéant-Drocourt Line and, once the Canal du Nord was reached, to swing southward behind the Hindenburg Line.  No. 2 Company was, as usual, to be in support of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the right front, the attack scheduled for the 26th.

The machine gun crews were assigned positions on high ground near Telegraph Hill, from where they would form part of a series of 16 batteries putting up a creeping barrage of indirect fire to cover the infantry’s advance.  One machine gun was all0tted to every 35 yards of front. Zero hour was at 3 a.m., when the barrage commenced. By 6 a.m. reports of casualties and guns put out of action - by the German counter-barrage - were coming in from crews hampered by thick mist and smoke from the artillery barrage.


Testing a Vickers machinegun, September 1916
Image © and courtesy of Library & Archives of Canada
Some time during the day Leslie was hit in the left shoulder, probably by a machine gun bullet, although it could have been a piece of shrapnel. He was not the only one, the 2nd Battalion CMGC suffering its greatest number of casualties of any single attack in the war up to that point, with a total of 27 men killed and 183 wounded between 26th and 28th August. The CO’s report stated:

Lack of stretchers was very pronounced. In some cases our wounded lay out for over 12 hours and in all cases it was most difficult to evacuate our casualties or to attend to them in the absence of stretchers or bearers.

Hospital Ship Princess Elizabeth
Image © and courtesy of Ian Boyle/Simplon Postcards
He was stretchered first to the nearest first aid post or dressing station, then to No 42 Casualty Clearing Station, where it was ascertained that the "foreign body" was still lodged in his shoulder. Later that day he was evacuated to No 4 General Hospital in Camiers, on the coast. As soon as space could be found in the transports, he was shipped across the Channel aboard the Hospital Ship Princess Elizabeth, a converted Isle of Wight paddle steamer, arriving at the County of Middlesex War Hospital, Napsbury St Albans on 30th August.

An examination at Napsbury the following day is reported on his Medical Case Sheet, in the usual almost indecipherable handwriting:

Entry 2" internal to point of acromion. F.B. (Foreign Body] palpable mid way between this + axilliary fold on post surface. Clean.

An X-ray examination report described a "Bullet present subcutaneous," and a notation makes it clear that he was a "walking," rather than "stretcher" or "chair," patient. Although no X-ray image appears to have survived in his records, the image of a skiagraphic above, extracted from a fellow soldier’s service record, shows a similar lodged bullet. On 6th September an operation was conducted and the doctors successfully removed the offending piece of lead.


Patients and nurses at Napsbury St Albans, 1917
Image © Rohan Price and courtesy of Hertfordshire Genealogy
The subsequent entries on his medical records indicate that he "returned from auxilliary, healed" on 4th October, and was discharged to the Canadian Military Convalescent Hospital at Woodcote Park, Epsom three days later. He was given a final medical examination on 8th October which pronounced him fit “Di” and, after recuperating for another week, he was discharged on Monday 14th and sent on furlough for ten days.


154 Almond Street, Normanton, Derby
Image © & courtesy of Google Maps Street View
Of course Leslie headed straight home to Derby but when he arrived he found Con very ill. She succumbed to influenza at 154 Almond Street, Normanton, Derby on Sunday 20th October. It was the second major wave of the “Spanish” flu epidemic in the United Kingdom, with hundreds of thousands dying, and Leslie’s distress during the journey back to the Canadian Machine Gun Depot at Seaford, Sussex on the 24th must have been acute. The regulation requirement to report to the Paymaster that his wife was deceased, and therefore he was no longer entitled to separation pay, would no doubt have added insult to injury, the loss of $25 a month being the least of his concerns.

At 11 a.m. on 11th November 1918, the day that Leslie received his final TAB inoculation, the armistice between the German and Allied Forces came into effect, and the war was suddenly over. Without Con, Les must have looked at peace time with mixed emotions. Who knows what their plans had been? Would they have gone back to Winnipeg together, where Leslie had a decent clerk’s job at Eaton’s department store waiting for him? It seems likely. He was eventually demobilised in Canada in February 1919, after a prolonged stay at Kinmel Park in Wales and a trip across the Atlantic on the S.S. Olympic, but that’s a story for another time.


Leslie Payne, Summer 1915 (left) and Winter 1918/19 (right)
Paper prints, Collection of Barbara Ellison
I find it telling how much he changed in that short space of time. He was a fresh-faced 22 year-old when he enlisted in the CEF in November 1914, and a haggard 26 on discharge. He looks at least a decade older in the later photo, not just three or four years, and I’m sure it was not just his appearance that was different. I've been told that Grandpa hardly ever talked about the war, at least not to anyone who ever felt comfortable to share such confidences with others, and from what I can tell this was not uncommon amongst Great War veterans.

How should he communicate and explain such a kaleidoscope mish-mash of contradictory emotions and experiences in which they had been suddenly immersed on the Western Front, in Leslie’s case, for 2 years, 11 months and 14 days? Their subjection, after rudimentary initial training, to a totally unfamiliar environment, the exhausting slog of marching and carrying supplies to the front, the tedium and discomfort of life in the trenches, the camaraderie eventually engendered between members of a machine gun crew who lived every moment of every day together, often within inches of each other, for months on end, and the anticipation of death at any moment, from any quarter, in the trenches, eventually replaced with mind-numbing resignation – all these would have been incomprehensible to their families and friends back home.

I hope that he was eventually able to dispel at least some of the dark thoughts, but I am sure there were many others that he could never forget. And nor should we.

Summer holidays at Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, circa 1920

Some years ago, my father and I did some research on, and corresponded with each other about, three snapshots which had come from my grandfather Leslie Payne's collection. I have previously discussed our tentative conclusions about the locations of these photographs in a series of articles written about my grandfather's early years in Canada, both prior to and after the Great War, here and here. The publishing of Jasia's very readable 74th COG Swimsuit Edition on Creative Gene and several other recent posts with beach holiday themes in the blogging community has prompted me to look at these again, as I have done many times over the years. I was particularly keen to examine them in light of my discovery a couple of years ago, in my paternal aunt's photo collection, of a number of related pictures. I can't really explain my need to discover exactly where and when these photographs were taken, and who my grandfather's friends were, but to many of readers I'm sure I don't really need to find substantive reasons or make any excuses! It's part of the genealogical journey of discovery.


"Boulder Photo"
A group of young men and women seated on a large boulder at a rocky beach, near a large body of open water, Leslie Payne seated 2nd from left, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of C.B. Payne
In 2000, I wrote the following:

I have persuaded myself that these - unfortunately unannotated - photographs must have been taken during the period that Leslie Payne lived in Winnipeg between 1919 and 1921. Is it possible that they were taken during an excursion to the shores of either Lake Winnipeg or Lake Manitoba. The large boulder in [this] photo appears, to both my father and I (amateur and professional geologists, respectively), to be a glacial erratic. For this reason, it doesn't seem likely that the photo could have been taken in England.

"Beach Photo"
Two couples on a sandy beach, Leslie Payne at left, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of C.B. Payne


"Rustic Bench Photo"
A group seated on a wooden bench at a tented camp, Leslie Payne at right, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of C.B. Payne

There is a third photograph showing two of these friends, as well as my grandfather and another unindentified man (at left). They are seated on a rustic looking bench fashioned from saplings. Leslie is at the right, leaning forwards slightly; next are the couple who appeared in both the Boulder and Beach photos. The bench is located against the wall of what appears to be a large canvas tent, situated in a wood. Was it some sort of camp? Where were these three photos taken, and who are the other people (three male and three female) with Leslie Payne. Was the man common to all three a friend from the WW1 Machine Gun Corps, perhaps, and the lady next to him, who also appears in all three, his wife or girlfriend?

"Mandolin Photo"
A large group seated on a wooden bench at a tented camp, Leslie Payne at right in middle row, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of Brett Payne Courtesy of Margaret Pugh
In 2003, as a result of some correspondence with the niece of one of my grandfather's old Machine Gun Corps buddies in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, she sent me a photograph from her late uncle Pete McLaggan's photo album. It appeared to have been taken in the same tented camp and at the same time as the "Rustic Bench Photo." This time one of the subjects was holding a mandolin - presumably they were having a sing-along - and smoke from a wood fire can be seen drifting across the background. After doing a little more research on the history of the beaches on Lake Winnipeg I wrote:

Between 1915 and 1919, in an area at the southern end of Lake Winnipeg already popular with campers, cottages started to appear around an area known as Victoria Beach. This was aided by the arrival of the rail line - and a regular rail service - in 1916, and the formation of a municipality in August 1919, which made Victoria Beach a very convenient and popular weekend destination for Winnipeg residents. It seems probable that all four of the above photographs were taken on or close to the shores of Lake Winnipeg. Contemporary and historical images of Grand Beach and Victoria Beach found on the web suggest either area as a possible location for both the camp and beach photos. However, without first-hand knowledge of the area, it is difficult for me to be sure, and it could just as easily be one of the several other beaches nearby, such as Gimli, Hillside or Patricia Beaches.

The fact that two individuals - apart from Leslie Payne - are common to all four photos supports the idea that they were taken at roughly the same period as each other. Comparison with pre-war photographs of Leslie illustrates that these are definitely post-war.

This narrowed down the potential date to between February 1919, after his demobilisation from the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Winnipeg, and May 1921, when he returned to Derbyshire, England. I also identified a couple in the "Mandolin Photo" from other annotated photos in my Dad's collection as Laura and Stewart Morris, friends of Leslie from his time in Winnipeg. Stewart Morris appears to have been a fellow employee at Eaton's Department Store.


Victoria Beach, Manitoba, on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, 20 October 2007.
Digital image © Ken Gillespie and courtesy of the Canadian Geographic PhotoClub
However, there were still several other unidientified people, and I couldn't really be sure about the location. As shown by historical and more recent photographs of the area, including the stunning shot of a sunset at Victoria Beach by talented Winnipeg photographer Ken Gillespie shown above, there were and still are several sites which might have had a mixture of such rocky and sandy beaches.


In my aunt's collection, which she kindly allowed me and my brother to scan in October 2007, I made the exciting discovery of an additional 21 snapshots in the same group as the four described previously. I've uploaded images of these, together with others relating to Leslie Payne's years spent in Canada between 1912 and 1921, to my Picasa Web Albums. This enabled me to sort them out into groups arranged roughly by date and setting.


Leslie Payne (back row, left), Stewart Morris (back row, centre) and four others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
I was able to separate them into two groups, based on photographic printers batch numbers stamped on the reverse of the prints. The bulk of them have a "C 21" stamp, while three have a "B 21" stamp. These latter three are obviously contemporaneous with the others, and it seems likely that they were taken by a different photographer in the group. Every photograph includes my grandfather. Although most have inscriptions, these have been made by my aunt, and only relate to my grandfather - none of the other subjects are identified. Two photographs, including the one shown above, are similar to the "Boulder Photo."


Leslie Payne (seated at right), Laura Morris (standing at right) and four others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
There were also two photos (one of which is included above) showing the same group of six that was featured in the first "Boulder Photo," but standing or sitting on a smaller boulder partially submerged in the water.


Leslie Payne (standing at right) and three others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
Next there are two photos with similar, although not quite identical, attitude and subjects to the "Beach Photo" described earlier.


Leslie Payne (front row, second from left) and eight others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
A further seven shots are in a similar vein, of various groups of between three and eleven people lying, seated and standing on a sandy beach, but apparently taken looking in the opposite direction, away from the water. While all of them appear posed, some have a more conventional portrait structure than others. Some are perhaps a little later in the day, as several of the subjects have donned more layers of clothing. Several are of somewhat poorer quality, either out of focus, poorly framed, or with subjects turned away from the camera. The example above is one of the better ones, with only one chap ignoring the "say cheese" request. In the background can be seen some partly vegetated low hills, possibly sand dunes, telegraph poles, other groups of beachgoers (one of them looks as though he might be eating an ice cream cone), including a child, and a bandstand, gazebo or small pavilion.


Leslie Payne (second from right) and eight others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
This more relaxed pose was probably shot only a few minutes after the previous one.


Leslie Payne (right) and two others, with Dancing Pavilion in background
Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The next two photos are similar, showing Leslie Payne and two others lying on the beach, but have a different background view, possibly to the right of the others, which includes a very large building with a rounded roof.


Detail of Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
It is this building, shown enlarged in the image above, which has provided, at least for me, incontrovertible proof that at least some of these photographs were taken at Grand Beach.


Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, undated
Image © and courtesy of Grand Beach Visitors Guide
The Grand Beach and East Beach Visitors Area web site has an article on the history of the area, apparently based on a book Grand Beach - The Grand Old Days by Susan Lemoine and Tim Barnfather (publ. 1978, Manitoba Department of Tourism, Manitoba). Several photographs are displayed, presumably taken from the book, two of which are included here.


Interior of Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, undated
Image © and courtesy of Grand Beach Visitors Guide

The grandest of all the buildings at Grand Beach was the Dance Pavilion. Rumour has it that this was the largest Dance Hall of its time in the Commonwealth. Until its destruction by fire in 1950, this was the major source of entertainment and the central meeting spot of the resort community. Entire families and all age groups would enjoy the music of the band hired by the railway for the entire season. Admission was originally free, but in the Twenties "Jitney" (a nickel a dance) dancing began.

Boardwalk & Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg
Image © Western Canada Pictorial Index and courtesy of Manitoba Conservation

A boardwalk was built over the years that extended from the station to the lagoon along the beach front. Hot and crowded during the day, lit up at night, the boardwalk provided sure footing for shoe-clad feet and food for hungry beach-goers. The first hot dog and soft drink stand was built in 1923. Under the boardwalk the shade was welcome. Treasure hunters could be rewarded with some loose change. Itinerant travellers found the boardwalk an ideal shelter. They say Sandy is the name given to a girl-child conceived under the boardwalk. Whatever the recreational preference, the boardwalk offered a variety of diversions.

The carousel was an awesome and magical building. Filled with hand-crafted animals: studs, mares and ponies, whirling in an endless circle to the tinkling music, their manes flying, teeth bared, hooves raised, forever frozen in time.

Leslie Payne (back) and friends, probably Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
There are two photographs showing a group of six beachgoers posing in a line on a wooden pier. In the left-hand image Laura and Stewart Morris are at the head of the line, while my Grandpa is at the back, but I have not yet been able to identify the other three. The electric lamp hanging from a pole at the end of the pier suggests that it might be part of the boardwalk system described above. There is also part of a rowing boat visible in the background.

I've included the second, very similar shot, because it appears that the photographer of the first picture has gone into the line (fourth from the front), and Stewart Morris has taken the second. I think we can assume that one of these two characters is the primary photographer in all the shots with "C 21" batch stamp. Since Stewart Morris only appears in two shots in the entire collection, and the other man appears in a great many, I think it very likely that it was Stewart who owned the camera and took the photos during this holiday period. The three from the "B 21" batch may have been taken with a different camera by another member of the group, although the possibility exists that one of the batches actually consists of reprints from the same original negatives as the other batch.


Leslie Payne (at right) and friends, at a tented camp
probably Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The final group of five photographs is from the tented camp in the woods, previously illustrated in the "Rustic Bench" and "Mandolin" photos above. Two of them include a much older couple, and I have speculated that they are possibly parents of one of the young people and owners of the property.


Leslie Payne (at right) and friends, at a tented camp
probably Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
This photograph is another view of the wooden bench and canvas tent, but from a slightly different angle. Hanging from the awning of the tent are two flags, a Union Jack on the left and what appears to be a version of the Canadian Red Ensign on the right.


Detail of Canadian Red Ensign flag
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
Nigel Aspdin has discussed the history of this design at some length on his vexicological blog, What's that flag.


The "Nine Provinces" Canadian Red Ensign of 1907, unofficial flag of Canada from 1907 to 1921
Image courtesy of 'Orange Tuesday' and Wikipedia
It appears to me to be a slightly modified or unofficial version of the "Nine Province" Canadian Red Ensign of 1907 after Alberta and Saskatchewan had been added, as illustrated in this Wikipedia article. Sharp spotted readers will notice, however, that the lower left and lower centre sectors have been switched around. Alistair B. Fraser in his The Flags of Canada - The Country: Chapter IV, describes the genesis of the Canadian Red Ensigns and the design of the 1907 Nine Province badge. He also discusses the rise in use of the Union Flag (or Union Jack) after the turn of the century, and the common simulataneous use of the two flags before, during and after the war.

It appears to me that Leslie Payne spent a few days, or perhaps several weekends, during the summer of either 1919 or 1920, with a group of friends camping at Grand Beach, an easy train trip from Winnipeg, during which time they spent a good deal of time at the nearby beach. There are at least a dozen individuals in these photographs, some of whom were probably in the same camp, while others may have been staying nearby. I have mentioned Stewart and Laura Morris, who I identified from annotated photographs of the same era. However, I don't know who any of the others were.

My grandfather received a book in October 1921, after he had returned to England, from someone who signed themself as "P" living at 43 Fawcett Avenue, Winnipeg, with the following inscription, "fulfilling a promise made two years earlier." My aunt believes this was a girlfriend named Peggy, but has no further information about her. Perhaps Peggy was one of those in the photographs. I'm hoping that some day, someone from the Winnipeg area will recognise a family member in the images included above, but I will admit that it's a long shot.


Today's article is my entry for the 5th Edition of the Canadian Genealogy Carnival hosted by looking4ancestors.