Notes From "Another Country"

The past - another country where we did things differently. I was sorting through some old photos recently and lingered long on this picture:

Evening at "Ashlyn"

I took it when I was nine or ten years old, in the little bungalow we lived in then. The airing hangs on a line across the room with tea towels drying over the fireplace. My mother is looking at the Kays mail order catalogue and seems to be dreaming of things she can't afford to buy. My father and brother are playing draughts and Dad is wearing his farming clothes - I remember showing them this photo years later and none of us could quite believe that he was in the house dressed in his dirty overalls - we did things differently in those days. The clock on the mantlepiece shows twenty-past-seven and nobody's watching TV,  because we didn't have one.

Dad feeding the pigs

I like the unselfconcious way that children take pictures. All children should be given cameras when they're as young as possible and we should keep the pictures they take. You can never get back to that country again.

Take care.