GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 87) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0597-0599

Ah...

I have no memory of these pictures being taken at all, if I'm being honest with you. At first glance I thought that they might have been taken on my first day at school, but that's nothing like our school uniform (which was predominantly green) and the whole suit jacket and tie, along with my sister's nattily posh overcoat (which I also don't remember) seems to suggest that we'd been dressed up - or asked to dress up - for some important family event or other.

From our apparent ages, it looks like this must be the very late 1960s, so it's far too early for our Grandparents' Golden Wedding anniversary, and a little late for my sister's Eleven Plus celebrations, so, unless it has something to do with my Dad being rushed to hospital during his year spent away from us at University in Newcastle, I can't think of anything else and certainly have no recollection of it.

I mean, I don't even recall having that outfit.

I do vividly remember the bright orange glass panelled door of number twenty-nine (despite my aversions, I've lived far more at odd-number homes than even numbered ones - which might explain a lot) although, such is the reflected nature of my memory, I was convinced that the lock was on the other side.

I do also vividly recall that enclosed area that took up the half of the surprisingly long back garden that we didn't have all of the bonfires in. That high brick wall that you can see was the oh-so-intriguing boundary to a very large house which had things like tennis courts in its vast garden which was either called, or belonged to, (if it wasn't just my Dad being whimsical) one "Malcolm Hall", but which I never got tall enough - or interested enough - to attempt to climb over.

A quick Google Earth search shows me that the hall has long been demolished and it's a housing estate now, which is how the fragments of our own personal version of the past that we remember slowly evaporate.