Over one hundred years ago in Cottingley, England, two young girls called Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright told their friends that they had seen fairies in their garden. Their friends laughed at them, so Elsie borrowed her father's camera and together with Frances took five photographs. When Elsie’s father developed the photographs, one of the pictures showed Frances posing with a number of tiny fairies. Convinced that the photographs were not real and annoyed for wasting his film, Elsie’s father banned his daughter from using the camera and hid the photographs away. Elsie’s mother, however, believed the photographs were authentic.
Three years later, a young man called Edward Gardner overheard Elsie’s mother telling her friend about her daughter’s strange photographs while attending a lecture. Edward Gardner asked to see the photographs. He passed them to leading photographers who excitedly declared that the photographs were genuine. As news of the photographs spread, people flocked to see lantern slides of the fairy photographs. The famous author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was especially fascinated by the photographs. He decided to find out the truth about the fairies.
Conan Doyle joined forces with Edward Gardner and Kodak, the well-known photography company, to investigate the photographs. Unfortunately, the investigation was inconclusive. No one knew for sure whether the photographs were real or fake. The controversy behind the photographs continued.
GLOSSARY
Authentic - real, not copied.
Fake - made to look like something is real so as to trick people.
The meaning of these two words are worlds apart and yet they are often met with in your reading. What is the difference?
Affluence
Effluence
You’ll be happy if you have affluence because ……
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Intermediate
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