Memory Failure

Lately I've been sorting out old family photographs and trying to organise them by decade. I've got back as far as the 1930s but have found myself with a couple that look even older based on the Railway Children style clothes. I have no idea if any of them are relatives.

The end of this month will be a year since my Mum died. I've done a lot of sorting out of things in that time, but the old boxes of photos weren't the highest priority. Fortunately for me, in a lot of cases she'd written the names of people or places on the back. That's been a lot of help especially where the relative in question was dead long before I was born.

I suppose it's not surprising that the volume of pictures gradually increases through the decades. Cameras would have been a luxury in the early 20th century and, judging by the dodgy picture quality, decent ones even more so. On the other hand, the few professional images - wedding photos, 21st birthday studio portraits and paid-for seaside candids - are of comparatively good quality. Although age has given them a sepia tone, they're an interesting record of wide-lapel suits, sensible shoes and bizarre headwear.

Out of interest, I scanned a couple of them and loaded into Photoshop. The latest version has an AI filter to colourise black & white images, which makes a best guess at the original colours. It detects skin well but the clothes and backgrounds were a bit psychedelic; it's really intended as a starting point for you to finish off manually. I might have a go on a rainy day with a few hours to spare. The effect on skin and hair was good enough to add an extra level of realism and make them seem like real people, which was strangely sad. In some way these people that I'm related to but never met came to life a little bit and I wish I knew more about them.

When we get to the 1960s and my arrival in the world, everything explodes in technicolor beauty, just like Dorothy arriving in Oz. Actually no, it all carried on in monochrome. At least the reverse of each print continued to include dates and names of people. I came across my Baby album, but many of the pictures were starting to come loose so it was another task to remove them all and stick back in. Hopefully another 57 years before anyone needs to do it again. I was surprised to find these had been written on as well, with the exact dates they were taken and where, even down to comments like "at the gate to Jimmy's house in Devon". I'd never have known if they hadn't needed to be re-attached.

As time moved on to the 1970s, colour prints finally appeared. Many were taken on 110 or 126 film, small cameras with equally tiny square negatives and minimal quality. These cameras all tended to suffer from parallax as well, which is where the viewfinder is not showing the same view as the lens. Look through the 'finder and compose your picture perfectly with your subject in the centre. Get your prints back and find your subject is in the lower left hand corner, blurred and with 3/4 missing.

Gradually the comments on the back reduced. Many had none at all, and where text did exist it was the name of the place only, no dates or names. I sometimes recognise faces but can't remember names, or know the place but the date escapes me. Occasionally a name has surfaced out of the blue, but weirdly this has been more often the names of people's pet dogs & cats (plus a parrot) than humans. It helps if I'm in the picture as well, since my variety of bad haircuts over time is at least a clue. Mullet? Yeah that was late '70s. Shoulder-length and greasy? Motorhead period, early 1980s. Blond highlights (yes I did and no, it wasn't): mid-80s. Male pattern baldness in my late 20s was a mercy really.

On a serious note, it is upsetting that this information is missing. My memory can't fill it in at the moment, maybe when I'm not thinking about it I'll have sparks of inspiration. But no-one who was in my day to day life then is alive now - there's no-one to even ask. In those days photos were only taken on special occasions, so for the picture to exist there must have been some meaning behind it.

If your family has a collection of old photos, don't wait until it's too late to fill in any gaps. One day you may become their custodian.