A Diwali card from the album

Mum wasn't much of a traveller but she loved getting postcards from people who were, people like me. She would pin them onto a notice board until it was full then transfer them to albums.  When I brought these albums home with me, took all the postcards out of the album and put them in date order, the (unkept) diary of my 20s was laid out before me. What a gift that was to leave me. My own life archived and passed on.

She was also interested in other cultures and religions and loved being given bits and pieces from my travels, many of which have returned to me now.  For a few years I lived just off Belgrave Road in Leicester - a road lined with Indian restaurants, shops and businesses and famous for its lights at Diwali and Christmas. I got into the habit of sending Mum a card for Diwali.

This is one that I found on her bookshelf, sent for the 2nd November which was the date of Diwali that year, and posted here for Diwali 2014.

Remembering Grandad on his birthday

It was my Grandad's birthday this week. He would have been 94. Although his name was Frank, he was always known as Jim. I have no idea why. No one seems to remember.

On Mum's bookshelf there are many pictures of him, which I will share over the coming months.

For his birthday, I'm going to put up one of my favourite photos of him.

Jim is about 8 years old and sitting in a garden in Ipswich. I don't know who Doug and Denis were - my Grandad was an only child. They have some charming metal toys which they are showing off to the camera. Two of them look like they might be in school uniform. The shadows look long, perhaps they were playing together in the garden after school one day when someone (my great grandad?) took a snap.

When I look at it, I see my own 7 year old boy in that  little boy with the big grin, captured on film in the late 1920s.