pavey and gilbert

I am intrigued by this picture. It's part of a hoard of found photos (or rather, a stack of negatives found in a junk shop) and it was taken sometime in the 1920s or 1930s.

For me it evokes Brideshead, the inter-war years, the River Thames, Oxbridge, but in all events a bygone era. And who is the young man with the serious face? He's gazing, not at the photographer but deep into his own thoughts. What is his story? His name? Who is he rowing and where? Did he have a happy life? Make it through the war that is coming? Or does he fall into that lucky generation that was too young for the first and too old for the second, like my grandfather. Though I don't think he saw it that way.

Copyright, on the back of the postcard, is credited to Pavey and Gilbert and there is a web address www.paveyandgilbert.co.uk but Google can't find it. As far as I can discover Pavey and Gilbert were a London couple who probably took this picture, and more, their names were on the packets holding the old negatives.



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