Images from historical times

I was delighted to return to my desk and find upon it an envelope from my cousin Teresa from Canada containing some wonderful family photographs. I intend to share them over time, at relevant anniversaries, but here are two to kick off with. One can learn so much from old photos... Family photo archives, turned over, thumbed through - familiar over the decades - form a certain canon of reminiscence. And then along come new ones, unseen, which add to the narrative - or raise question marks, or do both, fleshing out details of our human history.

Looking at these two, which I'd say were taken in spring and early summer of 1958, they are unusual in that they were processed professionally. Machine-printed, without the squeegee scratches and drying marks that marred my father's black and white photography, they suggest that my father turned to home-processing to save money rather than on aesthetic grounds!

Below: my mother and I, Croft Gardens, Hanwell;  the flowering trees suggest April 1958, so I'd be seven months here. My facial expression - a blend of annoyance and puzzlement - is still my default.

Another photo hitherto unknown to me; my father's first car, Morris Minor 1000, registration number 23 RMU. The trees are in full leaf, suggesting this photo was taken a few weeks are the one above. I guess this photo is taken somewhere between Kew and Petersham - Ham House? Richmond? The familiar route to Sandy Lane, Oxshott Common, Esher, our Sunday stroll destination.

Same roll of film, sent for processing, and prints mailed to family in Canada and Poland.

These days, digital photography shortens distance between families to a degree unimaginable in my childhood. In those days, taking a roll of 36 exposures might take a few weeks - two or three snaps of the same view, different angles, shutter-speed, aperture, different occasions - then send the negatives to be processed, have prints made from the negs - sent back by post, then posted to distant family; in the case of Poland, the photos from the UK would have been subject to censorship. Many weeks would roll by between the snap and the reaction. Life has speeded up!

This time four years ago:
Along the airport's eastern and southern perimeters 

This time five years ago:
Polska w ruinie

This time eight years ago:
Penrhos - a bit of North Wales that's forever Poland

[I was wrong. It's gone. Tragic loss for us.]

This time ten years ago:
On motivation - and being motivated