Patriotic procession

The photo was taken by Frank Eyre who was the stationmaster at Dunstable Town Railway Station – just a short distance away at the Luton Road junction.

He would, we guess, have been standing in King Street, with the Richard Street junction on his left.

It is often difficult to identify the location of old snapshots taken from family albums, but a comparison with the buildings shown in the modern colour photograph of the area seems to confirm our theory.

With everyone dressed up in costume, the fashions are unhelpful in dating the picture. But it is included among negatives showing First World War soldiers, and with such jubilant decorations everywhere it may have been taken in 1918 or 1919, perhaps of a Peace Day procession.

The Gazette did not have its own photographer until the early 1930s, before which it did not have the technology to make photographic printing plates, so professional pictures of earlier local events are very scarce.

> Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society