The oldest person you met

[Amor de Cosmos]

He only lacks a monocle. Clearly a Terry-Thomas prototype.

The two young Tories look like brothers. Unlike our boy at the front I hope they're not relatives but, given the rest of the family, most likely are.

[Various Artist]

Indeed. Just look at the socks and shoes. He's never spent a lonely night in in his life. Not like the two constipated Young Tories on the right.

Hahaha, the contrast just gets funnier the more I look at that picture. Brilliant.

[Lang Spoon]

Jim Broadbent at the back is pretty mesmerizing as well.

[Sam]

The earliest-born person I can remember with any clarity is my maternal grandfather, born in 1912. He died about two weeks before his 90th birthday. I think I met his older sister at the wake, but I wouldn't have said much more than 'hello' to her if so, and it's entirely possible she was actually his younger sister and I'm misremembering.

[ad hoc]

My paternal grandmother was born in 1900, and died in 1996. (All 4 of my grandparents were born in the 19-noughties, but she was the one who lived on longest). I must have met people from the previous generation when I was a child, but other than a few images of old people I couldn't actually put names to them or find out when they were born. At a guess I'd say that i will have met people born in the 1880s. Until she was about 85 and moved down from Sheffield to near where we lived so we could better look after her, she basically never went further than Derbyshire. She certainly never went to London. I remember sitting down with her when I moved to Portugal (having previously lived in Turkey and before that Thailand ) and telling her that I'd be much closer to home. "Still seems very far away to me", she replied, not unreasonably I realised in hindsight.

[treibeis]

Two years ago, at the funeral of Our Arthur, the last of my father's five brothers to throw a seven, my father was astonished to see Our Gladys, his mother's sister, in attendance. Our Gladys was born in 1908 and is still with us.

Our Gladys is six feet tall and smokes a lot. I'm tall and I smoke. I have therefore decided that I follow after Our Gladys and will live until I'm at least 109.

[Duncan Gardner]

Sort of on this, at the Metallica gig last night, at the end of our row, was a white haired woman who was definitely no younger than 80. She clearly couldn't stand for long, so spent the entire gig singing the words and giving it some welly with her arms, practically air drumming at times

The youngest Metal(lica) fan I know is cousin thrice removed Logan Hetfield McElhinney (aged 4 1/2). He's also an enthusiastic air-drummer and is currently helping his Mum complete her biography of Stiff Little Fingers.

[Sits]

This thread is a treat. Enjoyed AdC's and AH's lovely photos; the days when everyone wore boots. Apart from Flashman in the front row of course.

Laverte that's beautiful and sad. Look after yourself.

Tomorrow I'll try and find a pic of Granny (the Tommy's future wife, b.1899) as a teenager with her Mum and Dad.

[Gangster Octopus]

I knew my mother's mother's father (great-grandfather) and my father's father's mother (great-grandmother). They were still alive in the early sixties, both in their early nineties, so they'll've been born in the eighteen-seventies.

My great-grandmother made it to my parent's wedding in Dublin for her only foreigin jaunt when she was well into her eighties. She used to call my great-grandfather "young man", because he was a year younger than her.

[WOM]

I knew nobody of that sort. Everyone 'old' in my family was still in the old country. My own grandparents died in their 70s or early 80s, as did my parents. L's grandmother, who just died in June or July, was 97. Knowing someone born in 1920 doesn't seem so impressive.

[Duncan Gardner]

My great-grandmother made it to my parent's wedding in Dublin

Was your other parent there too?

[Gangster Octopus]

D'oh!

[anton pulisov]

Hoisted by your own petard!

[Eggchaser]

He only lacks a monocle. Clearly a Terry-Thomas prototype.

The two young Tories look like brothers. Unlike our boy at the front I hope they're not relatives but, given the rest of the family, most likely are.

Well, you're related to Rupert Grint, so there you go.

Also, the bloke at the back is surely Kurt Russell.

[Amor de Cosmos]

My great-grandad? I think he's rockin' the very hot Mark Twain look.

[Benjm]

Is it too late to register my strong admiration for the cad, as well?

I wonder whether he paid his hotel bill at the end of the holiday?

[Sam]

Caught absconding from the hotel without settling up? Shortly after being seen arm-in-arm with two young ladies in a family photo? With minors present? With his reputation?

[WOM]

My favourite family photo. I'm guessing it was made around 1909–10 during a clan holiday on the Isle of Man.

The hotel is still right where they left it, with easily identifiable front stoop, and operating as the Chesterhouse Hotel, Douglas. Address is now 37, rather than 36.

[MsD]

Adding my appreciation for the photos. Wish I had some old ones.

[WOM]

Probably my oldest family photo; my grandfather John (standing), his brother Andrew and sister Elizabeth with their mother Mary Jane. Roughly 1915, right after the death of their father/husband.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Elizabeth aside, everyone looks different degrees of terrified. Has Damien just entered the room?

[WOM]

You'd think, eh? Lost to time, I'm afraid. Only learned of the pic this past April. The idea of my grandfather as a boy had never occurred to me.
I met Elizabeth when I was 5 or 6 (Aunt Lizzie) but who she was meant nothing to me then. Fortunately my cousin is into genealogy and knows everything there is to know, and has a shit-ton of pictures she's acquired from relations from Greyabbey to Australia.

[WOM]

Apologies for going off-topic, but here they are around 1970. Grandpa in the doorway and Lizzie at right.

[Amor de Cosmos]

The hotel is still right where they left it, with easily identifiable front stoop, and operating as the Chesterhouse Hotel, Douglas. Address is now 37, rather than 36.

So it is! I'd love to go there and get photographed sitting on the front step. (with the appropriate co-stars of course!)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Adding my appreciation for the photos. Wish I had some old ones.

Lost, or never existed?