Alice, mum's sister, worked in the home of a wealthy Northumbrian mine owner prior to the outbreak of WW2. One year Alice was given a green leather case containing bottles of whiskey to take home as a Christmas gift for their parents'. Mum kept the empty case and filled it with old analogue snapshots and albums: paper memories. As a child they transported me to another era, to a time when my parents' were young. I made up stories about them; I still do. The case and its' contents is one of my most treasured possessions.
Whilst old photographs might be thought of as silent pieces of paper they are also objects that communicate events and experiences. As they get older they become yellowed with age, have marks and rips, possibly remnants of glue from where they were once pasted into an album. Someone once held, touched, or wrote on them, their markings are perceptible links with the past. Despite any flaws they are kept for their symbolic value chronicling happy occasions; an ageing print that outlives the original subject is often all that remains.
Who will care for my parents' collection, and know the stories they once told, when I and my immediate family are no longer here as their custodians ? How easily invaluable items such as these are destroyed, discarded and lost, histories eradicated.
