England has brought a certain amount of history for me, my history. Let me explain, when I started working, must have been 1973, I went on some amazing trips and even then I had a love for writing and taking photographs. Travelled around in my red Austin 11/55, covering most of the Free State and Natal. I even sent an article to The Friend Newspaper on of my trips. The trip threw up quite an interesting find. I found an old water mill that once ground wheat and maize. Still in reasonable condition and still had the grinding stones and rusty old mill wheel. The farm it was on, was abandoned and no one seemed to know who the current owners were. They published the article with my photos.
On the subject of The Friend Newspaper, they offered me a job as a typesetter. I ran the school press and among other things, I published a quarterly newspaper, mainly on what had happened, who had won when and how etc. Anyway I had a printing press donated to the school by the newspaper and the editor took an interest in what I did. Needless to say typesetting was not on my list of things to do. I was more into telling the stories, the printing was the only way I could get them out there.
My point is that all those photographs I took, all the writing I did, are all lost to me. As my life took it turns, they did not survive the moves and that was the same for most of my life until I came to live in England. Make no mistake, all that was of my own making. I did not realise the value of those memories and now regret not having them. If anyone has any of those old notebooks, photo albums lying around in a box, please let me know.
I was talking to a client and he was saying that he has boxes of books, letters and photographs dating back to the 1700's. He is a historian but his forefathers were builders, farmers and doctors. That sense of preserving your heritage in the form of official documents, letters and photographs seems to be something we should all strive to achieve. I have a storage server and as it holds 4TB, I have been transferring all my old photos and writing on to it. Sometimes I will print a old photo, just to hold it and feel it, it is different then looking at it on a cold screen.
Enough of the melancholy, I will leave to you all, thousands of files, treat them well, they are my life in print and image. They contain images of all those I love and have loved.
On the subject of The Friend Newspaper, they offered me a job as a typesetter. I ran the school press and among other things, I published a quarterly newspaper, mainly on what had happened, who had won when and how etc. Anyway I had a printing press donated to the school by the newspaper and the editor took an interest in what I did. Needless to say typesetting was not on my list of things to do. I was more into telling the stories, the printing was the only way I could get them out there.
My point is that all those photographs I took, all the writing I did, are all lost to me. As my life took it turns, they did not survive the moves and that was the same for most of my life until I came to live in England. Make no mistake, all that was of my own making. I did not realise the value of those memories and now regret not having them. If anyone has any of those old notebooks, photo albums lying around in a box, please let me know.
I was talking to a client and he was saying that he has boxes of books, letters and photographs dating back to the 1700's. He is a historian but his forefathers were builders, farmers and doctors. That sense of preserving your heritage in the form of official documents, letters and photographs seems to be something we should all strive to achieve. I have a storage server and as it holds 4TB, I have been transferring all my old photos and writing on to it. Sometimes I will print a old photo, just to hold it and feel it, it is different then looking at it on a cold screen.
Enough of the melancholy, I will leave to you all, thousands of files, treat them well, they are my life in print and image. They contain images of all those I love and have loved.
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