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A Strange Photo (Little Girl With Monkey(?) Figure)

Rushfan62

Abominable Snowman
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This picture is of a young girl by the name of Betty Cooper. She is long passed and is buried in St Oswalds, Filey. Her father, named Oswald Cooper, was a Head Master in Scarborough at Bramecote school.
The picture was taken on West avenue, Filey. WTF is she holding?
 
The fact a toddler is holding it off the ground indicates it's too lightweight to be any actual creature of that size.

I think it's a large and elaborate stuffed monkey doll or toy. The ridges in the long tail cue that it's artificial and sewn or woven. There seems to be a major seam running down the center of its back.

The strangest part is the head. It seems to be "un-furred" and shows banding reminiscent of Polynesian / Maori tattoos.

The head can be construed as turned so the monkey figure is looking back over its left shoulder. I'm not sure that's the case here. I've found photos of antique stuffed monkeys that use a circular structure with a central round protrusion as an ear. I tend to think what might be interpreted as the monkey's left eye is really its left ear, and it's actually facing the little girl.

If the head is turned around to face the camera the little girl would have to be twisting it into that position. If you look closely there are items that might be the girl's left hand fingers curled around the nape of the monkey's neck. However ... These possible fingers seem 'way out of scale compared with the fingers of her right hand, and what appears to be another set of fingers seen between the monkey's right arm and torso correlate much better (size-wise) with the fingers on her right hand.
 
The right hand on the girl is completely wrong. The fingers are far too long compared to the thumb.
The creatures arms where they meet its body remind me of one of those old teddy bears with moveable arms. The tail looks like a stuffed toy.
 
It looks like a retouched photo possibly. The graininess of the picture in the background landscape and the child doesn't match the toy (as I see it). The toy doesn't have the same texture, photo wise as the rest of the picture. This is really noticeable with the darker areas as you can see the dots. Even the girl's hair has this dotted texture. Looking at the toy, the texture looks smoother even in the darker areas.
 
Another feature hinting at photo manipulation / retouching is the way the little girl's apparent hands at the figure's left elbow and right torso don't seem to be grasping the figure at all. The girl's right hand can be construed as holding the figure upright with only a single finger touching it.

The mystery / possible third hand (at the nape of the figure's neck) does seem to be grasping the whatever-it-is.

If the figure has legs and feet, I can't tell what they're like or where they are.

Come to think of it, the girl's ability to hold the figure upright might seem more realistic if one presumes the tail is rigid, the tail is essentially carrying the figure's weight, and the girl is merely balancing it. This would mean the tail is resting on her left shoe.

I agree with brownmane that there's something that seems "off" about the figure's surface textures. Some places around the figure's outer edges make it appear somewhat shaggy, but the fur (hair; whatever ... ) on the back seems unusually smooth and devoid of any visible ends or tips.
 
the way the little girl's apparent hands at the figure's left elbow and right torso don't seem to be grasping the figure at all. The girl's right hand can be construed as holding the figure upright with only a single finger touching it.
Yes, this struck me quite forcefully.
Come to think of it, the girl's ability to hold the figure upright might seem more realistic if one presumes the tail is rigid, the tail is essentially carrying the figure's weight, and the girl is merely balancing it. This would mean the tail is resting on her left shoe.
But if you look at the shadows, the tail appears to be pointing at the girl's right shin, if not her knee. So touching neither the ground nor her left foot.

Even a cuddly toy, rather than a flesh-and-blood creature, of that size would have some heft to it, and a girl that age would have to put some real effort in to holding it up. I don't believe the image presented depicts what she was actually doing with her hands.

ETA: All of that said, there is something strange going on with her cardigan: it looks like it is being stretched down at the front. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that she has stuffed the legs of the simian thing into her cardie, and done up the bottom buttons. This would explain why we can't see any legs on the thing, as well as the apparent tension on the fabric of her garment. And of course it would act like a sort of sling supporting some if not much of the weight of whatever it is she's holding.
 
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This picture is of a young girl by the name of Betty Cooper. She is long passed and is buried in St Oswalds, Filey. Her father, named Oswald Cooper, was a Head Master in Scarborough at Bramecote school.
The picture was taken on West avenue, Filey. WTF is she holding?
Lest we take the details of her father's occupation as overwhelming evidence of his probity, a countervailing view is hinted at by the allegation he was in no hurry to repay a family debt, which ended up in litigation (resolved in his favour). Now, there are suggestions that Cooper was badly injured in the Great War, and I could imagine that any contact with that conflict might leave a person psychologically even if not physically scarred. Certainly, I make no judgement. But he might not have been exactly the fine, upstanding citizen one might have initially expected. In any event, there was probably some psychodrama swirling around the family.
 
The right hand on the girl is completely wrong. The fingers are far too long compared to the thumb.
The creatures arms where they meet its body remind me of one of those old teddy bears with moveable arms. The tail looks like a stuffed toy.
Her right hand is curled round the arm of the toy. The long fingers belong to the toy. The cardigan is simply one of those overly large ones which seem to have been popular back in the day. I knew someone who collected these peculiar animal soft toys many years ago. They were expensive originally and most wore out so to find one when they were collected you had to pay a lot. Sorry but I don't really see anything strange with the photo.
 
It looks like a retouched photo possibly. The graininess of the picture in the background landscape and the child doesn't match the toy (as I see it). The toy doesn't have the same texture, photo wise as the rest of the picture. This is really noticeable with the darker areas as you can see the dots. Even the girl's hair has this dotted texture. Looking at the toy, the texture looks smoother even in the darker areas.
Some of that dotted-ness may be due to the JPEG compression artifacts that you can see if you zoom in on the photo.
 
If the "monkey" was a commercially available toy, there are sites on the interweb where you can get these sort of toys identified. Mention of her fathers occupation makes me wonder whether it was made for some sort of school play or project. My mother and grandmother used to make large stuffed toys for local children, either totally from scratch, from patterns a la dress making, or from preprinted material which they cut out stitched together and stuffed. Some were weird indeed. So this monkey could have been a mummy special.
 
When this originally came up, I subscribed to a Facebook group which had related interest in Steiff soft toys, etc.

The intention was simply to enquire if the monkey-like artefact might possibly be identifiable.

However, I rarely use Facebook and had forgotten about this until last night, when I had to log in and check something unrelated.

Realising my subscription had been accepted, I brought up the subject.

What a laugh - although nobody recognises it, everybody wants one!

If genuine, there are seemingly comparative soft toys which were made in France and Germany.

Should anything else transpire, I shall duly advise.
 
Although I realise this is speculative and possibly nonsensical, what if it might be a pet... something like a long-tailed monkey.

If a soft toy, why would it be constructed to look sideways and not straight ahead...

Edit: Why is it not holding on though and would surely be too heavy?
 
If our little girl, Betty Cooper, is the daughter of Oswald Cooper, later a headmaster in Scarborough, there is an online reference from 1915 - "Lieutenant Oswald Cooper, youngest son of the Rev. Canon and Mrs Cooper has been invalided home after being wounded [at Gallipoli], and having had an attack of enteric fever". Also, "Oswald married Beatrice, the only daughter of Henry King, about three weeks before the war ended". Could the photo perhaps date from early 1920s?

https://lafredux.blog/2019/11/09/willersley-house
 
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