Ramblings of a Grouch

Well, Easter has come and gone. Did you make the most of it? (No, I don't mean stuffing yourself with chocolate).

Easter, Xmas, New Year - all good times to visit relations. And while you're at it, ask if you can look through an old photo album or two while you're there. Brownie points for visiting, double points for being interested! The fact that you're doing it to record whatever information you can while there are people still alive to remember is neither here nor there - you shine as the thoughtful and caring son/daughter/nephew/niece and gain a reputation within the family which you probably don't deserve but will do you no harm.

So you sit down and start looking through the album, asking questions about the people and places depicted. After the ninth photo you realise you forgot what the first one was, you don't know if Johnny Rotten in photo 4 was related to Rodney Rotten in photo 8 and you're not even sure if that is you in photo 9. You're going to find out a lot of information looking through albums so you need to keep track of what you have learned.

One way would be to write the information on the back of the photo with a soft pencil. Not such a good idea. First you have to fiddle the photo out of those little mounting corners, your greasy fingers smudge all over the photo and the corners flutter to the floor as their 60-year old adhesive fails. You scribble an illegible note on the back then jam it back into the two remaining corners, creasing it as you do so. All the while Aunt Myrtle is drumming her fingers and tut-tutting waiting to go on to the next photo.

Why not get organised first? Grab a pad of paper, a sketch pad, an old exercise book - anything you can draw and write in or on. Open the album at the first page and roughly sketch squares and rectangles on your pad in the same layout as in the album.

Then ask Aunt Myrtle about the photos, noting names, dates, places and so on in the appropriate places. Do this for each page in the album. Then you can add bits, go back to previous pages, compare the lad on page 26 with the one on page 5 - the possibilities are endless. And all without interrupting the natural flow of conversation. You should end up with something like this :

Just be careful that someone doesn't swap the photos around after you've finished - describing the Women's Institute Annual Outing as 'Local Dog Show, 1937' will instantly remove all brownie points gleaned earlier.

Until next time ...

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