As one day runs into the next, even my notes have given up the ghost! My brain is a fuzz and lethargy is becoming increasingly difficult to shake off as Nature prepares for the onslaught of winter. This week has been overcast, in every sense of the word. Days have been dark and dreary and the rain has been incessant, the clouds only parting long enough to tease. I have been trying to avoid any news whatsoever, eternally grateful for the mute button on the remote. I am aware of the mood, however, and the growing dissent as the term ‘digital Christmas’ is forced upon us. Digital Christmas? Seriously?! So, in our little bubble of six, each imprisoned in our own ‘areas’, we are expected to sit, adorned with paper hats, in front of a computer screen joining our remote family and friends in a rendition of ‘Joy to the World’? To use Lorraine Kelly’s terminology, watch me!
Too much time to think. Too much time to predict … and reflect. The future cannot be tethered but the past is the fuel of the present; the logs on the fire providing the warmth and comfort when needed. Photographs and memories. I have long believed that the photograph is the greatest invention ever; the ability to capture a moment in time – for eternity. Old ciné films, too. Recently, I recorded a Barbra Streisand concert in New York and, late last night, I decided to fast-forward through it as a taster of that which I have to look forward to given one rainy afternoon – pause for laughter! What a voice, though, and what presence … and what a striking resemblance to her daughter, Jennifer Aniston! The likeness is uncanny. I just wonder why the press has kept it under wraps for so long?
Not entirely sure where this is going but stay with me! Actually, tied up with my next choice for our Classic Film Night tomorrow – The Way We Were. 1973. It was a good year; a very good year, as Frank Sinatra sings … Anyway, it’s a must-see starring Robert Redford (he of ‘Sundance’ fame) and Barbra Streisand. A film with a beautiful score written by the inimitable Marvin Hamlisch, the title song sung by Barbra, herself. I have a handful of treasured albums – LPs, to me – which I rescued from the garage in the great move of last summer. The soundtrack to The Way We Were is one of them and I can still recall my excitement when I bought it – probably in Woolworths – all these years ago. My first ‘grown-up’ LP, as I thought, delightedly extolling its virtue to Pop. It cost me all of £2.99, I think. Happy days but a sad film! Suffice to say, that is the song I was skipping through the concert to find and, when I did, it was pre-empted by old photographs and footage of Barbra with Marvin Hamlisch, himself. He had died shortly before the concert which, I discovered, was in 2012. Not a very good year!
Old photographs, old film, the nostalgic Sepia of Butch Cassidy? I love them all, mindful of how precious they are. Forever in awe of the concept I am, nonetheless, eternally grateful for it. So it is that one of the books I read recently – On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming – places great importance on old photographs. As the author endeavours to piece together the mystery of her mother’s past and parentage, it is these faded, captured moments in time upon which she relies; images which, innocently, afford a truth impossible to conceal.
‘Time is photography’s true subject.’ As the author studies the many posed black and white snapshots of her mother – as a little girl – with her grandfather, the distance in the relationship is tangible; a coldness escaping in a mocking disregard for the ‘performance’. She scrutinises a later photograph of her mother – with both parents – in the same way, serving to confirm that which she already knows. The camera never lies. Body language is all revealing. It struck a chord with me; one who has always placed such great importance in capturing the past. So much so, that I,now, see that which was right in front of me …
My parents’ birthdays were just over a month apart, Pop’s in March and Mummy’s, the end of April. I have long delighted in being the giver of thoughtful presents; those which are tailored to the recipient and, thus, for Pop’s 70th, I decided to compile a collage of photographs of he and everyone important in his life, spanning the years. I did the same for Mummy. Gratefully received, both used to hang in the Study in Lyndhurst – two of the most precious possessions I was determined to secure when it was sold … Only recently, did I take the bubble wrap from them, finding a temporary home on the shelf above the bath in the downstairs loo! Like old friends, I find them, at once, comforting and sad. The passage of time; so many memories of the way we were. There is one black and white photograph, prominent, at the centre of Mummy’s collage which, now, haunts me …
A photograph of her – aged about six, I think – with Papa in the middle and her only sibling, Molly – five years her senior – to his right. In his suit and hat, he looks very dapper as he poses with his arm around Molly, his elder daughter, smiling as she holds a bouquet of flowers. On his other side is Mummy, five years younger than her sister. She is reaching up to link her arm through his which is not round her shoulder but, rather, secure in his pocket! The body language is poignant. It is as though Mummy is an add-on. He is embracing one daughter while shunning the other. That photograph is all I see, now, revealing of so much. I had been oblivious before – before On Chapel Sands – but now I understand the scars my mother carried with her and the reasons why …
A moment in time. Photographs. They are precious. Cherish them. Print them, for goodness sake. Stored on a phone or on a laptop, they are meaningless. The memories are priceless but, look closer, for one day they may reveal so much more …
‘Photography is the story I fail to put into words.’
Destin Sparks
This is Trish, signing off.
