Sepia Saturday 110 - In the Movies.....

This story and the photograph have a tentative connection to the theatre.

Second lady from the left is Lesley Ramage with her father John.
Lady on the far right is Nehru's sister.
Taken Bombay 1957. Lady on the far left is called Jane.

The original of the photograph is with my mother in law. Almost 20 years ago my father in law showed us a huge set of photographs. At the time we videoed them. Then in the Autumn of 2010 I transferred the video to DVD. The transfer appeared to have been successful and in further experimentation mode I played the DVD on my laptop and took a photo from the screen. This is one of those photographs.

Lesley Ramage is the first cousin of my late father in law. She had a career as an actress. I have no further details on her career or her stage name. 

Taking part in Sepia Saturday

Who was Rani Maharaj Singh?

As I said in an earlier post I managed to photograph some images that were originally camcordered back in 1993. This is two of those images.

These photo shows my later Father in Law, Derek Goucher's first cousin Florence Ramage nee Worship along with someone called Rani Maharaj Singh. I had known from stories told to me that Florence and her husband John had spent some time in India, and there are photos to confirm that. They clearly moved in the Indian Society circles of the times - which would have been the early to mid 1950s, so just after Independence from the "British Empire"

So who was Rani Maharaj Singh? The photographs were taken to commemorate the YMCA Carnival in 1953





Rani Maharaj Singh was the wife of the first Indian Governor of Bombay (1948 - 1952), the Honorable Raja Maharaj Singh. In 1949 She led Bombay's City Council for child welfare with funds that had been pledged by UNESCO.

In 1952 Rani Maharaj Singh is mentioned in the Day books of Eleanor Roosevelt. With the entry for 11th March 1952 reading ".....We returned on time for a luncheon given by the Governor and Her Excellency, Rani Maharaj Singh. It has been a great joy to have Mrs. Pandit here, for she is the most thoughtful hostess imaginable........."

So it would appear that Rani Maharah Singh held quite a place in the history of India and it really is quite interesting how she came to meet Florence Ramage, perhaps at a fund raising event.

Goucher Video / DVD

Back in 1993 we had the opportunity to video a selection of material that my father in law had of his family.

We recorded the material initially on a camcorder tape then transfered it to Video and more recently to DVD. I have now managed to photograph the photographic images using my iPhone. Now the images are OK, not brilliant, but OK and at least I can work with them. It was a nice couple of hours having a look at the material. There was information that I had forgotten we had. Which just shows it is good to go back to basics once in a while.