Old Photos

I have not done alot to blog about today. I've disinfected the goose house out, I've piled high the kitchen table with paperwork that needs sorting through and I've been to a cheap showing of Midnight Special .oh , and I called in to check on Auntie Glad with a waitrose Cherry cake but didn't stay long as she was baking.
I also unloaded the car of some framed family photos, which was given to me by my sister in law. She has downsized since my brother's death back in 2011 and she thought I may like some of my side of the family photos. " There's a nice one of you and Janet ( my twin sister) in the collection" she noted.
I sorted through the photos on the kitchen table and found the photo she was referring to. It was taken in 1973

I hate this photo.

I remember it being taken very well indeed for it was taken by the local newspaper's photographer on The evening of November 5th, Bonfire Night.
My sister and I look both look cold. We were and it was and I must say I look rather pissed off.
I was very pissed off as I recall....I was livid.
As you can see my father is wearing his chain of office.He was chairman of the Borough council at the time, and as I recall, my sister and I had been trundled out to be photographed on one of his civic do's.
Even at the age of  eleven this " cosy family publicity shot" really stuck in my craw.



29 comments:

  1. So often with old photos, what others describe as `a nice one of you` is actually layered with many emotions and memories which are anything but nice.

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  2. I second margo. my sister was cleaning out and sent me some photos of my first wedding. BITCH! why she didn't throw them out I'll never know.

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  3. The duffel coats looked really cool even if you and Janet were being mardy bums that day.

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    1. I remember the mardy feeling still after 43 years

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  4. I have so many pictures of my family that I inherited when my mother died. I hate almost all of them. I look at our faces and it takes me right back there to that house of such deep unhappiness and fear. My brothers claim not to want them either. I should just burn the lot of them.
    But...you and your sister were so lovely. You really were. Which doesn't make looking at the picture any easier.

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  5. Burning the pictures in a ritual of incense, good music and blessing the people and history to leave in peace and carry the pain and hurt away in the smoke can be helpful. OR a pint of Jack Daniels and really sharp scissors are good too!

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    1. ooooooooh, that's a great idea! thanks!

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    2. I think that is a great idea. I feel a burning session is long overdue

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  6. 'Midnight Special' not come here yet but I want to see it, especially for the big twist which, as yet (and thanks to you), remains unknown to me. You really must be living in or near a true cultural hub to get it within days, nay HOURS of its release!

    Btw: That photo is SO sweet. (Tee hee!)

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  7. Photographs have such power. They take us right back to that moment, whether it was good or bad. So the feelings come, whether they are good or bad.
    I avoid my box of pictures as if I will catch some illness if I look at them, even though some are wonderful. Photos...you can't help but relive that moment.
    Sorry yours was hard for you, then and now. Sweet to see your face when you were little though.

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  8. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but which words those are depends entirely on the viewer.

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  9. Did she know that you dislike the photo? I had a duffle coat like you John. Actually we looked pretty similar as kids!

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  10. Don;t laugh, still have and wear a duffle coat. Pictures capture all sorts of things. It is hard to view them without some emotion. Sorry yours was a negative reminder of a difficult time. I have a few of those as well. I keep them to trot out now and then to remind me of just how far I have come. I do admit to the flinging of a finger now and then as well.

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  11. Photos bring memories rushing back with a vengeance. I have what on the surface looks like a very nice 'child and Father Christmas photo' but when I look at it all I can remember is that we queued for ages to see Santa and my lovely son Simon tried his best to smile for the photo when in effect he was actually bursting to go for a wee and his Dad had refused to let us lose our place in the queue. He managed to hold on, somehow until after the picture was taken and I could rush him to the toilet, but the poor little lad had stomachache for hours afterwards ..... he was only four.

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  12. Good to 'visit' the past on occasion but don't stay too long....get back to the present ASAP.

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  13. Photos bring up such emotions. I think you and your sister look really nice, cold but nice... but what do we all know until you tell us.
    This is where you take scissors and fix them. Or burn them.

    All my photos were burned in an arson set wildfire that destroyed my home. So I don't even get a chance to see them, good or bad again.

    cheers, parsnip

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  14. Too many unhappy childhoods, John. Then there are even worse childhoods, so I think it's best to move on.

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  15. Sometimes, when I come across a particular photo from my childhood I am reminded yet again that often it is best not to go over old ground and stir up memories.

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  16. Margo and Anne Marie seemed to say it all for me in a way I understood even if the circumstances were different. I cannot put it into more words and I didn't need to read any more comments. Margo and Anne Mariexx and Johnx

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  17. The past is another country for sure..thank you for all your comments i read all of them

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  18. jenny_o nailed it for me.

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  19. i am photo phobic. i hate them. i can't look at any of them. i had a horrible life and they bring it all back.

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  20. Photographs are emotions frozen in time, only you can unlock them. Without your interpretation, I'd have an entirely different story for that picture.

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  21. Matching duffel coats too; very chic.

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  22. How was midnight special?

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    1. Will review it tomorrow after i see another movie!
      So so

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  23. I feel that I needed to accept the reality of those hurts and let them go.. To try to see how they had affected the way I am now, and somehow to let myself 'forgive' the twists the past caused. Locking the photos in a box didn't work for me. But I do see that for some people it is their only way forward.

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  24. Ah, the "sweet" memories old photos evoke. I had a great one of me hurling a football. I never in my life hurled a football. My father wanted me to look like the macho son I was supposed to be, so he staged the whole thing. People would say, "Oh, I love that photo of you playing football!" I burned it! If my sister were in it, I would have saved that part!

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  25. Yep my mum has a photo of my sis graduating from police college, very pretty on the wall. But never put my nursing photo when I qualified next to it as I don,t look pretty and was a stone overweight, hurt like hell!.

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