Redditor Accidentally Finds 1940s Ilford Film Ad Featuring His Grandmother’s Baby Photo

While looking at old British illustrations, a Redditor found a 1944 Ilford Selo Film ad based on a baby picture of his grandmother entirely by accident, not knowing it was his grandmother in the ad.

The Redditor, Steven, was browsing numerous vintage illustrations when he came across the Ilford Selo Films ad. He tells PetaPixel he often uses older illustrations as references for his own artwork and had actually been looking at 1950s illustrations on public health information at first. Going down the rabbit hole, he ended up seeing 1940s wartime propaganda in a style he liked, so he then ventured into looking at broader British advertising of that era. Steven says he has no particular connection to marketing, but he does enjoy photography, especially with older, simpler cameras.

Steven’s grandmother, Joan, caught sight of the Ilford ad over Steven’s shoulder and asked him where he found it. Joan then pulled out the original photo used to create the ad, a family photo that Joan’s grandfather, Albert Thomas Smith, had captured of her playing in the bathtub in the 1940s. Ilford bought the negative from him and used it for ads, like this one, that used the tagline, “Making a splash.”

“I wasn’t as shocked as you’d think at first,” Steven’s grandmother, Joan, tells PetaPixel. “[Steven’s] always finding old bits of family history.” He had recently uncovered a newspaper article about a tragic house fire Joan’s family experienced when she was a child, which sadly killed their family dog, so Steven is no stranger to digging up interesting information about his family.

However, as soon as she realized that Steven had found the Ilford ad of hers by accident, she was shocked.

Joan says she hadn’t thought much about the photo or the advertisement over the years, but remembers that her grandfather had been very proud of it.

“He did take a lot of nice photos. I think a lot of them are in my brother’s loft. I’d love to see them again,” Joan says. “I don’t actually remember him taking pictures. I do remember him using the garden shed as a darkroom though.”

Steven says the remarkable discovery (or perhaps “rediscovery” is a better word) has “emphasized how small the world’s become.”

He remembers his grandmother telling him, when he was a child, that a photo of her was used in an advertisement, but he had never thought much about it or specifically looked it up. To stumble upon by complete accident years later is really incredible.

Image credits: Ilford, Albert Thomas Smith