Weeding

I'm weeding family photographs. My parents were keen photographers, not very good at it- and seem to have kept everything. The secret is not to overthink- or overfeel- what you're doing. If a shot duplicates another better shot, is out of focus, shows people, animals, objects and scenery that will mean nothing to later generations or is simply yet another pic of relatives sitting in arm chairs at yet another unmemorable family gathering you tear it across (no going back) and drop it in the rubbish bag. You mustn't allow sentiment to creep in. If you do the exercise becomes depressing- and you should stop immediately- and wait till you can take it up again in a spirit of detachment.

I'm doing this so my kids or grandkids don't have to.

Of More Than Family Interest

Once in a while the weeding process throws up something of more than family interest.

A borderline case would be the shot of my parents' house on the occasion of the world-historical fuck-up that was the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. My parents were undemonstrative people but if even they were moved to hang a flag out of a bedroom window then it's evidence of just how deep the madness went.

And then there's this. In Sept 1982 my parents were bobbing about in a boat on Southampton Water when HMS Hermes came home from the Falklands- with her crew lined up along the railing and the Union Jack fluttering from her bows.