A Favourite Thing - Photographs (Photography)

Member Name: junkboxjules

Product:	Photography
Date:	25/07/02 (91 review reads)
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Advantages: Happy Memories

Disadvantages: None

I have spent days racking my brains trying to think of a favourite item to write about so that I can fulfill Jill Murphy's request. I've had all sorts of ideas but not one single item really struck me as being something really special that I would consider to be a favourite thing.

However, yesterday I was tidying out my wardrobe and lying underneath a pile of old shoes was a box of old photographs - packets and packets of photographs of people and places that I have very happy memories of. I opened the lid and slowly began ploughing my way through them, whilst looking at these photos I was struck by how many fond memories this old box of photographs holds for me, memories that can never be replaced.

I won't bore you by itemising every event that I have taken photographs of but will just furnish you with a brief outline of why these photographs are so special to me.

There are many photographs of my childhood but unfortunately whilst I remember certain things about the circumstances I was too young to recall much about them.

Probably the first packet of memorable photographs I have were taken by me when I went on a French exchange trip with my secondary school when I was 14. We sailed from Portsmouth to Cherbourg and stayed in a small village near Cherbourg called La Glacerie, (I think). My penfriend and host was called Corrine, she was very nice and came from a lovely family - she had two sisters Severine and Martine - they were both younger than us but we all got on famously. During the day our penfriends would go to school and we would gather outside their school to pick up our coaches that were to take us to our various day trips. One of those day trips was to Le Mount St Michael, whilst going through these photos I came across some of my best friend Debbie and I, immediately I looked at the photographs I was transported back 20 years and the memories of that great day out came flooding back. We were allowed to
walk about by ourselves and Debbie and I decided we would go on a man hunt. We met two dishy French men and they invited us to go for a drink with them, whehay we're in here we thought and trotted off behind them giggling amongst ourselves along the way. In France they appeared to be quite lenient in the bars and when we asked for deux bierre blonde we were presented with two large glasses of lager. An hour or so later we had to meet back up with the rest of our party so we made our excuses and hurried off. When we had all met up we were taken to a museum, Debbie was so drunk that she fell over whilst trying to hug this man in a red and blue suit who she thought was Spiderman - she was laughing so much because of it that she wet herself. I sometimes see Debbie now and we always reminisce about the French Exchange and in particular that day in France. Whilst we were there we also managed to get lost at the underground station in Paris and caused quite a palaver as the rest of the party went looking for us - we'd only stopped to buy some bubblegum but when we'd finished everybody had disappeared - we eventually found our teacher but missed the train and were highly unpopular with the teachers for the rest of the trip - everytime I look at my photographs of this French Exchange trip they make me smile.

Next I came across a Polaroid photograph which was taken by the midwife when my son was born. He was born prematurely and had breathing difficulties and because of this he had to be taken to the intensive care unit. I was allowed to hold him for a few minutes when he was first born but as I later suffered a hemorrhage I was told I had to stay in bed and could not go and visit him. I was obviously very upset that I couldn't visit my son so the midwife took a Polaroid photograph of him in his incubator, this photograph was all I had for 24 hours and it meant and still does mean an awful lot to me. Fortunately my son was able to leave the special b
aby care unit after a week and his health has not been affected as a result of these early problems.

I then came across a small photo album of photographs which were taken by my husbands friend Kerry and his partner. When we got married we also had our son, who was then one, christened. Kerry and his partner followed us about and took loads of photos of us all, many of which weren't captured by the official photographer, they then took them into Boots to be developed within 1 hour and presented them to us in an album just before we left for our honeymoon so that we could take them away with us. Those photographs mean such a lot to us both and it was a fantastic wedding present.

In September 1996 my Mother and Father in law celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary. We arranged a surprise party for them at our house and invited lots of their friends along, they thought that they were coming for tea with us and were so surprised to see all their friends and family, their faces were a picture. The photographs we took of this special day are very important to us as my Father in law passed away in December 1996. Sadly on 2nd January 2002 my Mother in law passed away too, she had only learnt that she had bowel cancer a few weeks earlier, this came as a big shock to all of us and these photographs are the last photographs we have of them both together and as such they hold a very special place in our hearts.

Obviously I have many more photographs and many other happy memories from them but I won't bore you with them all.

This opinion is dedicated to Mavis and Douglas Webb my late in laws and also to Jill Murphy who has courageously beaten cancer and is a tribute to us all.

"Jill Murphy asked me to write about one of my favourite things to help her celebrate her fourth anniversary of cancer-free living and to remind ourselves of all the nice things in the world. It takes more muscles to make a frown than a smile
you know. If you'd like to join in, whether you've only just joined dooyoo, or you've been here ages, you're more than welcome. Just write about one of YOUR favourite things, make your title "A Favourite Thing: [your choice]" and include this paragraph at the foot of your opinion. And post before Friday, 9th August."

On this occasion please ignore ratings below as they have no relevance.

Thank you for reading.

Julie

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