My Travelling Heritage

On a recent visit to HK, my parents brought with them (at my request) two of my grandmother’s photo albums.  My father’s mother, whom I called Granny, kept albums throughout her adult life.  These are a source of inspiration to me in two ways: Firstly, the fact that she kept albums at all inspired me to keep my own (both real and now, online) It was just the fact of the albums, but also the way she included together with her photos, newspaper cuttings and programs from the plays she went to see. They give a lovely record of the times as well as her own life.

A page from one album – dated July 1928

Secondly these album inspire me as they document her travelling.  My grandmother was fortunate enough (as I am) to be able to travel widely and frequently.  I hope one day to trace some of her footsteps.  Clearly travel is in my genes!

My grandmother (last girl on the right) in India, 1929

Several years ago when I came across these albums in my parents’ house I noticed that I had been to some of those very same places, and even taken some extremely similar photos.  Separated by 70 or 80 years, in some ways it was surprising how little had actually changed when I considered my own snapshots.

Now that I have the albums I will spend some time scanning in the photos and will try to do a comparison between places she went and places I’ve been.  Where possible I will try to have photos from both times.  Sadly, some places are near impossible for me to visit right now and the comparison of our trips to Karachi and Algiers will just have to wait until those places are a little safer.

These pictures will also guide my future travels and I will now deliberately try to capture the same images for comparison.

This will be rather a long term project, so I’m going to write about it as a kind of series. These may not appear in chronological order, but rather as I manage to find photos for comparison.

I thought I would start with the world cruise that my grandmother went on with her mother and sister.  It was on the ship “Empress of Britain” and they went around the world for 6 months from October 1932 to April 1933. Below is the route map of the whole journey.

More posts to follow on this most incredible of journeys…