Monochrome Monday

My grampy (seated) served in the first world war (I really should have used this photo last week) so I suppose this would have been taken about 1914-15, when he would have been about 20. On the back he's written , 'To mother, with best love, your loving son, Jack.'

I've realised on looking closer that this is a French postcard and, indeed, in the corner I can just make out the name Guillemmot, something & Co, Paris, and I assume that would have been the photo studio. Does that make sense? Would our soldiers have had access to a French photography studio? Or maybe the photographer went out and set up a tent in amongst the soldiers?
My grandfather was shot in the first world war when a bullet went straight through him. His chest I think but he also had a scar on his leg. He lived to his seventies in spite of that - and smoking all his life.

He was a very gentle man and deaf in his later years, and he would sit in the corner of the living room smoking and reading quietly. He had a hearing aid but it never seemed to work very well. Or perhaps he just didn't switch it on. That was the wisest course of action I suspect as my birth meant he was the only man in a house with four women, including his wife - a strong-minded, some would say, domineering, character - his mother-in-law, his daughter and grand-daughter.

I'm having to photograph all my old photos now as my scanner isn't working so forgive the quality please.

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