Janice Quilliam has quite a project on the go, working her way through the thousands of slide photographs taken by her father, Leslie Quilliam, RBV and digitizing them. This has enabled her to share some of the fascinating images, particularly of Peel, which feature some views which have changed little over the years, others of old landmarks coming down, then of new buildings going up, and some of the incidents in the life of the town, including the final day of the steam railway in Peel and the manoeuvring of an articulated wagon with the abnormal load of equipment for the then new power station through the narrow streets.
On Saturday 4th January 2020 Janice posed the question as she took us on an illustrated tour, – Do You Remember? Peel in Living Memory – Photographs from the Collection of Leslie Quilliam, RBV. It was an opportunity to pool information about people, places and events. Just what route had that huge wagon taken on its way through Peel? Who was that standing outside the former Ben-my-Chree Café? Where exactly were all those steps, and why was the photograph marked ‘AY’?
In the case of the steps, it turned out that they were the result of a photographic trip outside of Peel to the Sumner’s platform at the east end of Arbory Parish Church (Colum Killey) in Ballabeg, so that was at least one mystery solved.
Many thanks to Janice for a very enjoyable afternoon – gura mie mooar ayd! As well as the information shared whilst Janice was initially showing the photographs, it also led to very earnest discussions about what was to be seen, as is evident from this photograph taken on Saturday.
