FAMILY HISTORY COLLAGE
Long before I was involved with family history, craftwork played a major part in my life; crafts such as ceramics, wood carving, stained glass, metal work and creative embroidery. But it is only in the last year or so that I have started to combine the two interests and I have chosen this collage, entitled ‘My Grandfather’s Garage’ as my ‘Image of the Month’.
I had always heard that my grandfather’s petrol and oil-filling station in Ballyhackamore – a suburb of East Belfast – was the first in the country, but when I started to put together his family history, I wanted the evidence; I wanted to see this in writing.
The story of how I found the proof I was after can be read in ‘North Irish Roots’ – the Journal of the North of Ireland Family History Society (Vol. 25 No. 1. Spring 2014).
The answer lay in a publication called the “Irish Motor Trader (October 17 1929) which I eventually tracked down to the British Library Newspapers at Collindale, London.
All the images in the collage have been printed onto inkjet transfer paper (in reverse) and then ironed onto fabric. I have included a photo of my grandfather, the family home (with petrol pumps in front of it) and the workshops to the side. I thought it was important to include a section of map from the time and you can see ‘Garage’ marked at the side of the road that runs across the centre of the map. Needless to say, I felt the ‘Irish Motor Trader’ had to feature – both the title from the cover (which shows the date) and part of the text from the article. I chose the jade colours to complement the old sepia photos.
And the little tyres?
Shhh – they’re from my grandson’s Lego sets – but I promise I’ll replace them.