THE DALE SMITH COLLECTION of photographs is now ready for visitors to see at the Hedon Museum.
Dr Martin Craven from Hedon Museum is delighted to announce that the albums are available to view and that a file is available to collect the comments of visitors about the photographs:
The two albums of photos, taken by the late Dale Smith, contain almost 400 prints, mostly from the 1990s.
Volume 1 entitled ‘Hedon Views’ shows many street scenes at all seasons of the year; demolitions of old buildings such as the Assembly Room, George Street’. New building developments feature Ivy Lodge sheltered housing, St. Augustine’s Mews, Ivy Lane estate and maintenance work in progress in the Market Place and Baxtergate.
Volume 2 entitled ‘People of Hedon’ shows so many of Dale’s friends and local personalities, often socialising in various public houses or in the Royal British Legion club. It is also a record of numerous galas, fetes and presentation events, remembering that Dale acted as the Hedon correspondent for the Holderness Gazette for a number of years. Shopkeepers, Civic occasions, garden fetes, Women’s Institute and church events, Lifestyle and R.N.L.I. support groups are all covered in this volume. Protest marches, vegetable and flower shows and exhibitions in the Alison and Alexandra Halls – the list could go on and on.
Were you photographed by Dale in the 1990s? Come and see if you can find yourself in Volume 2. The albums are free to view in the Museum, any Wednesday or Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm. Just ask the volunteer on duty to see the Dale Smith albums.
Unfortunately, Dale did not write details on the back of most of the original prints so you may be available to provide us with names of the people shown, where some views were taken and the important dates.
All the original photographs, which are owned by the Smith family, were enlarged by Ray Duffill, with permission.
Martin Craven, Hedon Museum Society, July 2021
The Hedon Museum asks that you don’t bring tea or coffee to the table when viewing the albums. Please don’t remove photos from the albums. The prints are numbered and there is also a file where any names, dates, places can be added. Your comments can add to our knowledge of the history and social history of the town.
I’ve been privileged to work on this and I’m delighted that the albums are ‘open’ to view. Each photo was scanned, printed and enlarged, so I had a chance to look at each in some detail.
The photos show how the town has changed over the years and show new places being built and old ones that are long gone.
Community events and activities are recorded. They take place much as they do today, but the characters in the photos are often the parents and grandparents of Hedon’s current generation. The photographs capture a slice of Hedon’s history.
Thanks to Martin Craven from the Hedon Museum for painstakingly adding notes, comments, and questions to each of the photos: They will help us not only to look at the photos but to study them. They will be research tools helping us learn more about the town and its history.
As a photographer myself, and the current Hedon correspondent for the Holderness Gazette, I feel sure that Dale would have loved to know that his photos would become sources of conversation and be talking points for new generations of Hedon folk. And of course, the Dale Smith Collection will be talked about and studied for years to come.
Ray Duffill
Dale Smith was a founder member, stalwart and caretaker of the Hedon Blog Photos – Old & New Facebook group. It serves to keep alive the memories, nostalgia, characters and history of the town and its surrounding district. If you have a link to the town then you can apply to join the group. Click the link in this paragraph.
