scan

Thank you for your variety of comments on my first scanned image of my grandfather and me. As promised, the harvestmother and I spent a productive Thursday evening eating curry and scanning more images from the family archives. All of these were from my grandmother’s collection, which my mother went through and rationalised when Grandma died in 2005. (The rationalisation was of necessity, given the volume of recent images taken by my uncle on his travels with my grandmother, in which the photographer’s goal seemed to be to record every moment of significance from a dozen different angles. One can’t fault his thoroughness.)

Many of the images I am reluctant to share in this forum, for two general reasons. One is that we have perhaps only two or three photos of many of my ancestors, and only one of some. My grandfather’s family in particular lived in what might be called genteel poverty, with great dignity in difficult circumstances. In keeping with their times, they were private people (see the latter half of this entry, following “Anyway”, for an idea of what I mean), and there seems to me a disjunction between the way the images of them are taonga in our family and the bright, harsh light of the internet.

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After many years of thinking about it, I finally bought a scanner. This is the first image that I scanned, this evening. It’s me with my grandfather. The family story goes that whenever he was asked to hold infant me (say, while my parents were setting the table), I would immediately fall asleep, which would necessitate everyone waiting until the powerful nap had ended before the task at hand (say, eating dinner) could be undertaken.

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