Students' hack or actors' prop? What's going on with this vintage Humber?

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A few weeks ago, we received this charming photograph from Alistair Philp showing a 1930 Humber tourer, we believe a large 16/50 model. The questions we have to answer are where was the picture taken, and what's going on?

Alistair has suggested that it could depict something on a film set. Our first thought was that the characters involved look a lot like students, and the location could well be Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh or a similar university city. However, the picture looks far too well-composed and staged to be a mere snapshot - it certainly has the look of a publicity photograph. Date-wise, I think we can be reasonably sure that the picture was taken in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the duffel coat of the chap on the right being a staple of many a student's wardrobe at the time.

We've been racking our brains trying to think of old celluloid stars whom we could match with the faces in the photograph, but without any success. We can't see George Cole or Jim Dale or anyone else we'd recognise there, but perhaps somebody in the picture rings a bell to you?

The Humber, incidentally, is still on the road today and is apparently painted blue. Does anyone know more about its past? In particular, was it ever a film star? Let us know...

Words: Zack Stiling; photograph: Alistair Philp
 

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