I was told to ask here by a moderater

[leanora]

I have a group photo  of some service men  and male and femail service me sitting round a table in what looks like a pub. they all have glasses of Beer on the table in front of them. nothing strange in that you think

 but on the back of the photo it has a water mark  and says
A with a sort of crown  M

 then crown  copyright 
reserved

  this has me puzzling me why was the photo crown copyright reserved ?

 its a black and white photo

[PrueM]

Hi Leonora 

Presumably it was an official photo for some reason, perhaps wartime "propaganda" material or something?  When do you think it was taken?

Cheers
Prue

[leanora]

no idea of the date but the photo has one of those fancy decorative edges round it  not cut straight , like most photo


I would say possible 1940 -50's there is a service man in the from with 3 stripes on his arm . But to me it just looks like a group of friends have a drink.

 was wondering if some one ran out of paper to print photo's and  shall we say borrowed some  possible ?

[Roger in Sussex]

A lot of surplus stuff left over from WW2 was sold off in the years after the war, so possibly photo paper might have been included in that.

Of course it was not unknown for the occasional item to be "borrowed" as Leonora suggests. 

Roger

[leanora]

  thanks

[antiqueone]

A crown M is Air ministry. I would think the servicemen are in the Royal Air Force. The Air Ministry was combined with the War Office and Admiralty to form the Ministry of Defence in 1964.

[leanora]

Thank you , that sort of helps my mother new a few  airmen in the war