Bill Hall's Family Album

This photo album belongs to Bill Hall who kindly loaned it to us for our digital collections. It contains images dating from the early 1900s to the 1980s, taken across Scotland.

Flicking through the pages there are several studio portraits which were very popular in the days before most families had their own cameras. Everyone is seen posing in their 'Sunday best', and not smiling for the camera.

There are photos of sons before they went off to war standing proudly between equally proud parents. Then photos of returning sons now mounted policemen, showing off their horses to bemused relatives.

Historical moments have also been captured. When there were airship endurance trials over Edinburgh in November 1929, someone managed to capture the strange sight overhead.

Nowadays we all take photographs on our smart phones and digital cameras, most staying on memory cards and computers and never seeing the light of day. Gone are the days when taking a photo one day meant we had to wait for a week to see the end result. When we did get them, some were carefully mounted into photo albums, to be brought out and looked at again, reminding us of holidays or family celebrations. Some of us might still have photo albums at home; passed on from one member of the family to another, all packed with photographs of loved ones at various stages in their lives.

In Bill's album a few pages have the photos removed, maybe lost over the years or perhaps given to other members of the family; all that's left are the photo corners showing where they once were.

You can also browse the Bertram Limited, Sciennes exhibition to see more of Bill Hall's family mementos and history.