I remember the air stewardess holding my hand as we climbed the steps to the plane which was emblazoned with the British Airways flag and logo. It was the first time I was going to fly, and I was a little bit nervous as I turned round to wave to Mum and Dad in the terminal. The air stewardess looked down at me, squeezed my hand and said ‘you’re going to have the best seat in the house, you’re a V.I.P.!’ I don’t think I fully understood what that might entail (I got a colouring book, felt tips and a window seat near the front), but it really worked, and as we trundled down the runway of Leeds Bradford, I looked forward to my first trip to the capital.
I was going to visit my Aunty Moira, and her then boyfriend, soon to be her husband and my Uncle, Jim. My memories of the trip are slightly hazy, but it always makes me smile thinking about it, my first great adventure. We ate lots of cheese sandwiches, I remember the pelicans in St James’s Park and the pigeons landing on my head in Trafalgar Square. The smell of the city stays with me to this day, and when I studied and lived down there, that familiar smell always made me jump back into this trip. The memories of taking a black cab ride after seeing The King & I with Yul Brynner, and eating a McDonald’s for the first time. That trip will always have a special place in my heart.
The week before lockdown, we’d travelled down to Oxford to run a filmmaking workshop. On the way back home, we stopped off at my Uncle Jim’s house for a night. Sadly, my Aunty Moira lost her brave battle with breast cancer 20 years ago. We miss her every day, and life still feels very strange without her in it. Olive’s second name is Moira, and she is definitely showing her namesake’s spirit!
My Uncle now lives with his lovely wife Nicola. When we arrived, and Olive was having a nap, Jim told me that he’d recently discovered some old negatives. The images that emerged were of him and Moira down in London in the 70s, taken around the same time as my trip down there.
I absolutely love them, and I asked him if it was OK for me to share them here. I love that they were taking pictures of each other. And even though they are mainly individual portraits, you can feel that both of them are in the shots. The way they are looking at each other, well it absolutely gets me. The black and white, the flares, the cars. The newspapers and tube fares that send out clues to the time they were taken. The blemishes and dust scratches on the photos, and the washing line image, which seems to be a family obsession!
I’ve been turning to my film camera more lately, and have had it close to me during lockdown, seeing these has deepened my love for film. I can’t quite describe it, it just seems to ramp up what I’m feeling a bit more. People describe film photos as timeless, but these images depict the time they were taken so well, the timeless quality comes with the way they look at each other. That absolute look of love.
Here are Moira & Jim.
My Uncle has just sent me these gems from my trip down there!
