When my little sister Joanne turned 40, I made her a birthday reel using photographs of us growing up. This meant going through what can only be described as an extortionate number of old family pictures, most of which are now in my possession because Mum's no longer here and Dad lives in Spain. My parents were keen photographers, and there are literally thousands upon thousands of photographs from their lives and ours, all taken on film and developed at a time when doing so was quite an expense. I've inherited the lot, including one enormous box that genuinely takes two people to lift. It's ridiculous, and I've been meaning to do something about it for years, but actually sitting down and going through them for Jo's birthday was really lovely.
What struck me was how much I remembered about almost every photograph. I'm fairly interested in our family history anyway, so I have quite a good handle on who people are and where things happened, but some pictures brought back such specific memories that I hadn't thought about for years. There's one of Jo and me sitting at a breakfast table when we were little, and I know exactly what was happening in that picture. My parents worked in the hotel industry, which meant that taking time off during the summer was practically impossible, so we used to get sent down to Weymouth to stay with our granny, auntie and uncle. We'd sort of flop between their houses for weeks, spending time with our older cousins and generally having a brilliant time. I remember looking forward to it enormously, particularly one summer when we stayed for an extended period because things were quite difficult at home.
Anyway, while we were staying with Granny, Joanne somehow managed to convince her that we normally had ice cream for breakfast. Granny, being the lovely granny that she was, apparently thought this was perfectly reasonable and proceeded to give my little sister a great big scoop of Neapolitan ice cream every morning for two solid weeks. I remember that so clearly, right down to the fact that it was specifically Neapolitan ice cream. I've no idea whether Granny genuinely believed her or simply decided to indulge her, but either way Jo had managed to pull off a rather impressive little scam. And that's exactly what I remember whenever I see that photograph. To anybody else it's just two little girls sitting at a breakfast table, but for me it's that entire summer in Weymouth, including riding donkeys on the beach, swimming under the waves holding on to Uncle Noel's neck, and skateboarding down an enormous hill outside my auntie and uncle's house without a helmet, knee pads or any form of protection whatsoever. Absolutely terrifying, but I remember doing it quite keenly!
There are other photographs that remind me of places we visited regularly, rather than one particular occasion. There's a picture of us feeding pigs at the Rare Breeds Farm Park near Oban, somewhere Dad used to take us all the time. I'm wearing dungarees and Joanne has on this enormous fleece, which is a fairly good representation of how we dressed in the 80s and 90s. We were frequently put in matching outfits, and there are dresses in those photographs that I can remember owning even when it's Jo who's wearing them. But the farm picture mostly reminds me of the animals, particularly a deer called Squeaker, who had apparently been hit by a car and was left with an injury that made him squeak when he breathed. He lived in his own little hut on the hillside, and we'd go and visit him towards the end of our walk. I remember him being really small, although I've no idea whether he actually was. I'm not even sure I ever heard him squeak, or whether that's something my parents told us. I do remember the distinctive smell of the animal feed you bought at the entrance, and a rather cheeky goat who would try to steal it. There was also a sheep with a sign attached to his back saying, "Please don't feed me. I'm on a diet." Honestly, what a place!
Jo was quick to point out that I'd missed one of her favourite photographs from the birthday reel, although I bring it out every Halloween so it's hardly been forgotten. It's a picture of us at Mum's house in Corran, dressed up to go guising. I'm supposed to be a witch, although I'm essentially wearing black clothes with some sort of mad feather boa and wild hair, so quite how that qualifies me as a witch I couldn't say. Joanne, meanwhile, is dressed as a ghost in a black bin bag, on roller skates, pulling the most hilarious face you've ever seen. And yes, she genuinely went guising like that. We lived in this tiny hamlet on the shores of Loch Linnhe, with only a handful of houses to visit, and I remember being absolutely terrified of the dark because there were no streetlights and quite a distance between the houses. It's funny because we look manically happy in the picture, and we probably were, but it's the darkness I remember most about that night.
Going through all these photographs has made me think quite a lot about the ones I don't know the stories behind. Most of our childhood pictures are fairly easy for me to identify, but my parents worked in hotels for years, and when you work in that industry, your colleagues become such an enormous part of your life. There are photographs of staff parties, evenings in the bar after closing and people who were obviously very familiar to my parents, but I've often got absolutely no idea who they are. They're pictures from their lives rather than mine, and although I know a lot about their history, there's so much that I simply wasn't part of.
Mum had actually started organising some of the photographs before she died. She'd grouped them into little bundles and written notes around them, occasionally revealing things about how she really felt at the time. One that has always stuck with me concerns Corran, where she'd established her own caravan park after separating from Dad. It was her business, something she'd built for herself, and she absolutely loved the place. She eventually had to sell it, and she'd written about how heartbroken she was, describing it as her one true love. I knew how much Corran meant to her, but reading those notes gave me a slightly different understanding of what losing it had meant. Mum was an immensely interesting woman, very strong-willed, capable and a real force to be reckoned with, and I keenly feel the loss of her stories. I think we tend to take for granted that we know our parents because we've known them all our lives, without really considering how much happened before we came along, or the parts of their lives that we simply never asked about.
I'm desperate to properly archive all these photographs, partly because I love family history, but mostly because I don't want my children inheriting this enormous collection one day and having absolutely no clue what any of it means. I've already had to ask Mum's brother and sisters about photographs from her childhood, and although they've been able to fill in quite a few gaps, there are things I'll probably never know. I'd love to have everything organised, with names, dates and little notes explaining what's happening, although quite how I'm going to achieve that with tens of thousands of photographs is anybody's guess. At the moment the whole thing feels like such an enormous task that I've got absolutely no idea where to start.
I suppose that's part of why I feel so strongly about the work I do with True North Stories. I know how much information can be contained in a perfectly ordinary family photograph, provided there's somebody who remembers the circumstances in which it was taken. And I'd hate for my children to look at that picture of Jo and me at breakfast in forty years' time and never know that their Auntie Jo somehow persuaded Granny to feed her Neapolitan ice cream every morning for a fortnight. It's exactly the sort of thing they'd find hilarious, and I rather like the idea that they might still be laughing about it long after we're gone.
If you've been thinking about recording your own family's stories, you can find out a little more about how I work with families at True North Stories.