Very old beach scene, probably 1940s

This very old colour slide shows a woman posing beside a beach of holiday makers.

The clothes the woman is wearing, the camera she is carrying and the general ‘look’ of the picture suggests to me this is the US, and the film type of Ansco – an american make – reinforces this. If that is true it makes me wonder what the concrete structure is on the beach behind her? My initial thoughts were that it is a tank trap – the sort of concrete structure which was built to stop tanks during an invasion, but I don’t believe they were ever built on beaches in the US. Also of course, tank traps were placed all across the beach so it can’t be that. Possibly it is part of a bigger structure which has been destroyed or dismantled? At the time is was obviously useful for keeping peoples clothes and towels clean whilst they went for a swim – one useful function it may serve today is to provide some clues as to the location of this picture – someone may recognise it.

The date is another mystery, although the clothes worn look very 1950s or even 1940s to me. Bobby socks were a craze which was popular in the US in that time period, and the main subject of the picture is sporting those.

It’s unfortunate that the picture has lost much of it’s colour over the 60 or 70 years since it was developed. Many reversal film types suffer this – only Kodachrome seems immune. We can only guess at the true colours in the scene on this sunny day all those years ago.