Mabel Hunter was born Mabel Urquhart on 11th July 1899. She married John Robert Strong Hunter on New Year's day 1924. Unfortunately her husband died from an industrial injury in 1935, sustained while he was at work. Compensation and widow's pensions were nothing like they are now and so, with two young children to bring up (Helen & John) during the 1930s depression, it meant Mabel had to go out to work. Patsy believes this is when Mabel joined Jerome in Sunderland - she was definitely there during WW2 (1939-45). Patsy relates how Mabel used to speak about the Armed Services people coming in to the Studio to have their photographs taken before going off to war and wondering how many never returned.

Mabel is known to have worked in a photographic studio in South Shields prior to her marriage, so it would have been a natural thing for Mabel to return to doing similar work - which was general retouching work and hand colouring black & white prints, an 'extra' offered by many photographic studios until the early 1960s. From mid-1960 the cost and quality of a 'true' colour photograph came into an affordable price range, but for the previous 100years the main means by which colour photographs were produced was by hand colouring.

Patsy understands that Mabel was the only hand colouring artist employed by Jerome in Sunderland, so any coloured photographs from that branch would most likely be the work of Mabel. The colours she used were Kodak 'Velox' Transparent Water Colour Stamps and Patsy still has one of Mabel's brushes, a "4 Reeves' war series 461".

This group photograph was taken on 15th November 1945.
Mabel Hunter is in the back row, 3rd from the right.

Some of the names of the other girls are written on the back of the print and they read:
E.Eggleston (aged 20 years); E.Robson; probably Elsie Robson - front row, extreme right (aged 25 years); Mary McKenna (aged 18 years); Nancy Laurie (aged 17 years); E.Forster (aged 20 years); E.Gatenley (aged 19 years), Miss G.Valkly (no age given) and Miss W.McCarroll (aged 17 years; left end of the front row).

It seems that with so many men still in the armed forces, it was women who were running the Studio.

Right hand side:
This print shows Mabel and 3 other female colleagues and a male colleague. I've now (April 2021) learned that the lady in the centre is Jean Sidaway, mother to Jeff Falconer). It is dated on the reverse 1st January 1949. Men would have been back in the work place by this time, since most all Non-Regulars would, by then, have been 'de-mobbed' out of the armed forces.

Patsy comments that since it was taken on 1st January, this implies the staff were not taking a Bank Holiday. She comments that usually the North East "always did have a holiday on the 1st; it was the one day a year we became Scottish!".

Above is a hand coloured picture of Elsie (Robson) with her husband Chris, probably taken around the same time and almost certainly hand coloured by Mabel.

The black & white photograph alongside is of one of Mabel's Jerome colleagues, Elsie Robson. It is dated on the reverse 6th November 1946.

The hand coloured photograph above is of Patricia (Patsy) Beech when she was aged 3 months old. It is dated 12th June 1948 and was almost certainly hand coloured by her grandmother Mabel Hunter.

Patsy comments that "I don't think I ever gave it a second thought that my gran must have coloured the photograph until I came across the black & white version the other day !"