She did not think connectedly of her past at all. Old people do not. To the old the past comes in a series of pictures, not of necessity connected, here intensely vivid, there dim and blurred — a green field, a quiet evening, an angry quarrel, some loving face, some sharp disappointment — and all, vivid or blurred, dispassionately removed. No call for action any more. Quiescence. And then a strange wonder that to those about them these scenes so real, so actual, mean nothing, stir no reaction.
Hugh Walpole - The Old Ladies (1924)
The other day found me passing the time in Littleover, a suburb of Derby which was once a village. It is still possible to see hints of its individuality, traces of the village it once was. I know it well, having lived there as a teenager with my parents and brother, then again some years later with Mrs H because it happened to be convenient for my new place of work.
Mrs H and I left the area for good nearly forty years ago when my job changed again and a series of pictures crossed my mind as I sat there in the café. Family, friends, bike rides, tennis, visits to the library on the corner, the old pub, the birth of our children, shopping, an alarmingly expensive barber I only visited once, people I once knew who lived there.
I still know the area well, but forty years is too long for the thread to remain unbroken and still feel a sense of belonging. Now it is merely a series of pictures. Maybe that was the sense of belonging, the immediate familiarity of the pictures. Maybe that’s all it was and still is - a series of pictures.
3 comments:
I often wander around with my camera. I usually take pictures of building sites as new structures are built, but also the changing face of the 'High Street'.
Had I not got photographic evidence I could be surprised in the change of one of my old haunts from a few decades ago. But the truth is that shops change hands, streets are 'pedestrianised, and there are more, bigger, cars around. The slow drip of change is imperceptible on a daily basis, but over the longer period it becomes striking.
The past is a different place. People who expect it to be the same as today should take up photography...
It always has been a series of pictures, but they used to be glued together by hopes, desires, fears and other emotions. Once they go, we are left with the loose pictures. It's emotion that gives the meaning.
DJ - if I'd taken photos of the area in my teens they would certainly be interesting now. Apart from loads more houses on the periphery, the core of it hasn't changed too much, but the detail has.
Sam - for me it's mainly familiarity which glues it together, which is like an emotion but not quite. Yes there are other emotions, but mostly associated with people rather than the area itself.
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