The Photo Book

(from 2014)

Earlier this year, Mrs O and I had a 40^th wedding anniversary celebration. The family came up and we all had prezzies.

My daughter did a photo book for the two of us, and then the extras were a necklace for Mrs O, and for me some sheet music autographed by the late John Stewart. If you have read some of my older posts you will know why the latter is special, but if not, then no matter.

But the photo book contained numerous surprises. Earlier this year she and her husband stayed at our home to look after her grandmother, while I went to America to be ill. And, with a photo book in mind, she raided our photos, stuffed in boxes and all sorts of places; then she raided photos at my elderly mother’s, and then she raided photos from a friend who sometimes does anonymous battle/banter with me on this blog. She dug out so much stuff that I just didn’t remember – being somewhat elderly and forgetful now.

There is stuff in the photo book that I have not seen for a million years.

There is me walking on my hands with a 5 year old chortling in the background. At school I could cover the length of the school gym on my hands – reminding me of Boswell’s politically incorrect dog quote in Life of Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.” I had put such youthful achievements completely out of mind.

There were photos from the two ends of the British Isles, John O’Groats and Lands End. One vacation I cycled from one to the other, camping on the side of the road in a kiddie’s play tent. I had tried to waterproof it but the aerosol can ran out, so I took a chance that it wouldn’t rain. I lost. At the very end was a postcard I sent to my mother from Lands End after eight days and 930 miles (the route was slightly off course so I could freeload on friends at various stations on occasion when I didn’t feel like wet camping.)

The postcard contained eight lines of verse (or worse):

The Land’s End folk were roused from sleep

By one loud crash, then groans,

And rose to find a crumpled heap

Of mainly skin and bones!

Which exclaimed: “eight days it took

- I’ve done it – though I’ve roughed it!”

Then with a contented look

- The apparition snuffed it!

I have no recollection of writing that at all. It is probably just as well.

That trip was my only experience of Glasgow, cycling home at the time they threw people out the bars. I have never seen so many people fighting in the streets, and being bundled into the back of Black Marias. I put my head down and pedalled like crazy to Hamilton Race Track for another wet night. I have not been back.

I remember I had made a list of things to do before reaching a certain age. This was one of them. The next was to canoe up the Grand Union Canal from London to Birmingham – but I pedalled back from Lands End in time to film a wedding where I met the future Mrs O and priorities sort of changed.

There were pictures of me and the future Mrs O in Spain, where she was working. The hairstyles were interesting. There were meetings in the woods under the guise of picnics, because the group she worked for was still banned in the last days of Franco. And then all the rest, our first home, birth of child, pictures of child biting father’s feet, father putting on a horrified look while holding a book entitled Baby Taming, and fancy dress. Oh yes, fancy dress. Mrs O used to make costumes and in the regular parties the congregation we attended held for the kids, there was always someone who would write a song and get the kids to mime – generally with loads of wild enthusiasm but a certain lack of attention to detail. On one occasion our daughter played a little piggy who in the middle of the song, decided she’d had enough and escaped from Noah’s Ark, and resisted all attempted to put her back, while the singers flailed away as if nothing had happened.

Then there was the time we made the front page of Welsh newspapers when our tandem bicycle was stolen. The reporter came and clucked sympathetically and took pictures of us looking glum. Then – just to show in the office, nothing more – could we pose as if riding an invisible tandem? Of course we could and we did, and of course that was the picture they used. Still, it ultimately got the machine back and we lived to pedal another day. In due course a kiddie seat was fixed on the back and we had some tiring holidays trying to pedal up and down mountains.

There were photographs taken on long distance solo cycle rides (250 miles variety) where a certain correspondent insists I ate something off at a midnight cafe in Pembrokeshire and was ill in a ditch. I really don’t remember that. I am sure he imagined it.

There were vacations here and there, and pets – including a dog that grew and grew. Our daughter wanted a dog, and her best friend had picked up a stray on the side of the road, taken it home, to be presented with numerous puppies of indeterminate breed. We had one of them. The first time the dog visited my mother, it enthusiastically leapt onto her lap. My mother’s cup of tea in hand shot up like a Fascist salute and we had the tea stains all over the curtains for years. Of course, as soon as our daughter got the dog she met her future husband, and we were left with the animal. Sadly our lifestyle precluded the kind of care Mutley needed, but we re-homed him in an untidy house full of children, and hopefully he lived out his life in doggy-heaven.

Celebrations – so many years of this, so many years of that – yes, it’s a picture of a life.

But it was a bit disconcerting to think that my daughter rummaged through all that stuff. I mean, ALL that stuff - bottom drawer, bottom cupboard, attic, and all the rest. What actually is there? We haven’t looked ourselves for years. I just hope she didn’t come across my diaries...