Fifties waiting room that contains many mysteries

They say that a picture tells a thousand words but in this photograph from our archives one can only imagine the stories behind the people captured by our photographer.

We know it was 1957 but that’s about it. Ceratinly it looks like a railway station waiting room but exactly where is anybody’s guess.

And what about the characters frozen in time by the shutter of the camera? What sort of lives did they lead? What stories could they have told? What happened to them and are any of them still alive nearly sixty years later?

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Lets’s start with the queue at the refreshment counter. In the foreground a balding man in a suit leafs through a copy of a newspaper while he waits to be served. In the background another queue of two men. This time there is a young man in uniform, doubtless doing his national service. Behind him a man in a trilby counts out his change.

Now let’s look at the front of the picture.

On the left another trilbyed man glares at the camera as he stirs his drink. On his left a second man looks at the headlines, cigarette in hand. Did they know each other? Were they connected?

And behind them two younger men are engaged in deep chatter. About what we wonder?

A self conscious trio are three tables down. A wavy haired man glances up suspiciously and behind him a couple, clearly unnerved by the photographer, look extremely uncomfortable.

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Somebody from outside just missed out on being in the picture. Their friend is a woman in a buttoned up coat who glances back at them as she enters from the left. Behind her, a dark skinned man sits with a group of two others.

Who was he and who were the men with him and the other group in the middle at the back with the bag on the chair?

And finally, the man behind the counter right at the back on the right. If we want a better look at him we need only to look at the mirror on the back left wall. His reflection is there for all to see.

Do you know anyone in this amazing photograph and can you tell us their story?

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