To avoid another bit of bloggage about the banality of January, let’s wander back through the years. My Mum popped round earlier with some old photos. Louise had been asking if she had any really old black and white ones that we could frame and hang, she didn’t just appear out of the blue with random photos.
From a vast collection of photo albums (remember those) we looked through just three. They were a mixture of really old photos of my Mum’s parents, and brothers and sisters through to some that were even in colour!
Before I shock and amaze you with my incredible levels of cuteness when I was younger, take a look at these of my Mum and Dad, or Tony Curtis and Doris Day…not sure which.
I think at the time of this next one my Dad was in National Service. It is amazing and scary to think that just a generation ago every male had to serve two years in the army! My soft under belly quivers at the prospect. I am under no illusion that my Dad spent those two years in peace time on a switchboard rather than on a front line somewhere, but still, two years in uniform is a prospect I cannot compute.
On a similar note, I have been watching Band of Brothers (again) of a Friday evening on TCM. It is probably one of the best, most compelling and watchable pieces of drama ever made, and this week was the one where they spent weeks dug into frozen holes with no supplies, ammo or warm clothes at the Battle of the Bulge. I simply cannot comprehend that experience either. But I digress….
Moving on a good few years, this next one caught my eye for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I look horrified, and second this was from a time when you could have your photo taken with a monkey outside of British Home Stores. Or was that just Bolton?
There is also some top anorak action going on here along with some top gurning from my brother, more of which later.
So onto the cuteness I promised you. I’m not sure if this next one is before or after the last, but my levels of cuteness only lead me to ask what went wrong?
Brace yourselves….
I’m pretty sure that is food around my mouth, so not much changes really.
As technology raced ahead, within only a few short years we emerged into a glorious world of technicolour, Polaroid cameras, large brown swivel chairs that only Dad could sit in, but for some reason still with dodgy anoraks.
My brother is one of those people who cannot have a photo taken without such an expression. I think there are probably only half a dozen of them in existence where he looks “normal”. Some of them are his wedding photos, but not all!!
It has been strange looking back through history. Looking at myself seems like looking at someone else. I sort of remember those times, but somehow see them as seperate to my life today. I wonder how the girls will see themselves in years to come.
It will be different I suppose, as their life will be captured in many and varied ways. Facebook and twitter have already captured their every thought in recent years, and with phones acting as cameras and video cameras, they will have a lot to reminisce about. There are moving images of my younger years of course, but they are on silent jerky “cine” films which are buried somewhere in my Mum and Dad’s house.
I suppose I can only hope they have more happy memories than otherwise, and of course that I manage to stick around long enough to look back with them. If Emily keeps taking corners on two wheels like she did again this afternoon, that could be in jeopardy.
Till the next time…..
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