Friends Recreate Photo They Took 52 years ago

Four friends, Marion Banforth, Susan Morris, Mary Helliwell and Carol Asbro, have recreated a photo they took while on vacation 52 years ago.

In the summer of 1972, the friends, who were teenagers at the time, left the industrial West Riding of Yorkshire for the English Riviera on their first holiday without parents. While on vacation, they took a photo in Torquay.

Fifty-two years later, and still as close as ever, the group decided they would recreate the moment at the same location.

They made the 322-mile journey to Devon from Halifax and bought replicas of the outfits they wore 52 years ago to recreate the photo in 2024.

The friends were 17 at the time they took the initial photo in 1972.

"It was a lovely time," Marion, now 69, recalls.

"It was just fabulous to be able to do what we wanted to do without having anyone looking over our shoulders and tell us what time we had to be in.

"We used to go down to the beach every day in Torquay and one day there was just a man on the prom with a camera. He asked us to link arms and then he took the photo. We all got a copy."

More than half a century later, and friendships still very much intact, it was Susan's idea to recreate a 2024 version of the photograph, although the initial reaction from the rest of the group was one of incredulity.

"I passed a photocopy of the photo round when we were out for a meal and said 'Right girls, how do you fancy recreating that?" Susan says. "Well, they dropped their knives and their forks! But they came round and loved it in the end."

To reinvent their 1970s clothes, they raided charity shops and online second-hand clothes retailers before managing to find some authentic outfits.

"I'd bought my dress online and it took two of them to zip me up into it," Mary laughs.

"It was a bit tight!

"But once we got out there on the promenade it was nice. There were people watching what we were doing and it was a good laugh!"