"Surprise Photograph" 1928

[Flying10uk]

I recently came across this photograph, taken in 1928, and a note with the background story on how it came to be taken which I had completely forgotten about until rediscovering the photo.

What happened was my late grandmother's brother was a lifelong shooting enthusiast, concentrating mainly on "sporting type guns" and as a young man his mother thought that it would be "rather nice" to have some photos taken of his shotgun, dog and cartridge bag, without his knowledge and then present them, to him, as a "surprise". She either didn't have a camera of her own available or didn't want to present her son with amateurish photos and so she decided to call on the services of a professional photographer. The photographer's business was in Clacton-on-Sea a she lived a little way out of town and she had no means of transport other than her feet.

She didn't consider this to be any sort of hindrance because she simply put the dog on a lead, slung the cartridge bag over her shoulder and stuck the shotgun under her arm and didn't bother about covering it or putting the gun in any sort of gun bag. She proceeded to walk into Clacton-on-Sea, with shotgun under arm, and then into the photography shop in town. She had the photographs taken, the result is below, and then it was a return walk home, shotgun under arm and, as far as I know, no one challenged her and no one objected either going to or from the photographer.

When she finally presented the photos to her son and the story came out about how they were obtained he was not all happy because he was always very strict on anything to do with gun safety. One can imagine the reaction that the lady would have got if she did the same thing in 2022.

The dog's name was "Bob".

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