Earlier in the year, I finally got round to sorting out all my old photographs. What started this marathon effort was the seemingly small task of removing photos from some old albums. They were ring binder folders containing plastic sheets with pockets, which, being now 45 years old, had begun to warp and bubble. I was concerned for the photos but fortunately they were unaffected, but it was necessary to rescue them and give them a better home. The ring binder method was ideal, as it is always frustrating to arrange photos and then find another one that needs slotting between the others.
I was very organised at the time and typed lots* of tiny captions on sticky label strips to put alongside each pocket. These could not be removed, so I had to interleave the now loose photos with paper strips with scribbled place names and dates. The job went quite quickly and I ended up with wads of photos wrapped in sheets of paper, arranged in two shoeboxes. The albums were destroyed, and took with them the memories of when they were first bought. The film rolls of 36 pictures were sent to the chemist* for developing and there was a wait of two weeks for them to come back from their lab. There was the excitement of seeing several months’ worth of photos, reviving the memories of the events, days out and holidays. It was nothing like today’s instant smartphone and digital photography.
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