poliphilo

There are those who say it's a shame that all our pix and stuff are going onto clouds where eventually they'll be forgotten about and dispersed to the ether. I'd have been one of them once.

But now that I'm the keeper of the family archives I'm developing a harder shell. My parents were keen snappers. The snaps piled up- most of them of little interest to anyone not represented in them. Many are in albums which means they take up even more space.

I've got a picture in front of me now - it was just lying around- as such things do. It shows a group of middle-aged people sitting at a table in a restaurant. My mother- leaning in at the left hand margin- is one of them. On the back is the explanatory note- Christmas lunch of the German Class 1988. Will I keep it? Yes, I suppose I will. If I don't I'll suffer pangs of guilt at having destroyed what may one day be a precious social document. Into the cupboard it goes- in with all the rest- and I can only hope that my many-times great grandchildren are duly grateful.