Miyako odori time- 都おどり and maiko hikizuri progress

1929 Miyako
1938 Miyako
1965 Miyako
1966 Miyako

Ta da! The 1965 and 1966 programs contain Mineko Iwasaki as a maiko, she is famous/infamous for being the geiko to talk to Arthur Golden for his book "Memoirs of a Geisha".

Also I found this:

From here.

So Mamehiro's oneesan is Yoshimame from the okiya Shibata, which could be Mamehiro's original okiya.

Shibata nameplate from a few years ago

I know of three okiya in Gion that have the kikyo mon: Shibata (柴田) , Arai (新井) and Tsurui (つる居), MissMyloko believes that the Tsurui okiya opened in the late 1990's: Here is the discussion on Flickr.

So I can cross off Tsurui as they wouldn't have existed in the 1980's, that's not to say that the okiya my hikizuri belonged to hasn't closed.

I haven't found much information on Yoshimame, from my 1960's Miyako odori programs when she was a maiko I can't clearly see her okiya mon but it looks like its kiri...

Here is the best photo I can find, I mean you can't really see but it doesn't look like kikyo...

I think I'll have to take this to the forums, I'm stuck!