Giant Dad

I was going to write this one on Father's Day, but I didn't.

Father's Day this year fell on my birthday (as it did the day I was born). Dad was having a lovely time on holiday and I was having a lovely time doing absolutely nothing, so we didn't celebrate. However, to belatedly mark the ocassion, I'd like to share with you my absolute favourite photo of me and my Dad.

That's me in the natty red number. Peter had a similar outfit in brown. Mine was nicer. Pete's cardigan was brown tartan.

I like to think that Dad also had a contrasting section to the bottom of his trousers, just out of shot. Mum too. Like a British Partridge Family maybe. But they didn't. Not really.

We're standing on Hadrian's Wall and it was a long time ago. Since this picture was taken Dad has shaved off the sideburns, I've given up wearing natty trouser suits and Hadrian's Wall has been re-pointed, decorated in neutral tones and had an ensuite added.

We don't have too many actual photos from our young childhood because everything mostly was on slides. That probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's been many years since we had a working slide viewer or projector, so it's a rare treat to find a picture like this one. There are a few others in existence, but other members of my family might not thank me for publishing them on the interweb...

Digital photography is one of those things that is so new, but is so hard to imagine how we'd now manage without. Remember getting your film developed? The anticipation as you opened the envelope full of brand new pictures? The disappointment when you realised that only one of them came out how you wanted it and all the rest had those little 'over exposed' stickers on them? The current generation of children will have a very different view when they look back in years to come. Now we can have hundreds of pictures of everything. Even the second baby! (No - I'm not bitter!)

I'm sure I have a point here. Maybe it's that I think the rare treat is something special. That finding a picture of a time or place I'd completely forgotten is a bit magical. That seeing pictures of myself as an unfamiliar child gives me goosebumps (in a good way). Now that we can catalogue every moment, every stage, every expression and include it in a screensaver, perhaps we've lost something. Or perhaps we've really gained something. Maybe it's just me...