The Prizegiving

My CV (which can be found by going HERE and scrolling down), includes one item of which I always been particularly proud. This, the second in the list of my lifetime's achievements, is perhaps the most noteworthy, though it was only a runner-up prize.

Unfortunately photography was in its infancy in those days and no pictures of the presentation of the prizes are known to exist. However, to illustrate the item I have found a lovely contemporary print of a comparable occasion, though it has to be said that this was a much more lavish affair:

Had I attended that 1885 prize-giving ceremony (at Le Palais de l’Industrie, Paris) rather than the one in 1938 at Kingsley Road Junior School, just by the Croydon gasworks, I might have been standing behind the man about to receive the first prize, though of course I would have been wearing shorts.

Incidentally, the respective Guests of Honour at the two events were Hector Berlioz in 1855 and, of course, Miss Beamish in 1938.