When my Dad was alive he liked to do a bit of photography. Nothing too serious, weddings, holidays and grandchildren; the usual thing that most people do. I've no idea why but for some reason he preferred slides rather than printed photographs and I can remember quite a few wintry Sunday afternoons and evenings when the projector and screen would make an appearance (this was long before Sky TV and games consoles) and his Grandchildren would enjoy seeing their parents and themselves in younger days.
After he died in 1997 my Mum put the slides, projector and screen away and although she purchased one of those hand held viewers I don't think they've seen the light of day too often. Recently she has been trying to offload the slides and paraphernalia onto my sister or myself and before Christmas I gave in and now the slides are sitting on my office floor waiting to be transferred onto CD or DVD.
I've got the feeling that the task is going to be long and arduous but also quite emotional, there are sure to be many long forgotten memories in those boxes. I picked up a cheapish negative/slide scanner from Maplins (my favourite shop) and have made a start in sorting through them. There are many of my first wedding that I'm not entirely sure I want to look at and I'll be running that one past the present Mrs Reed. In total there must be seven to eight hundred of the damn things but this is part of our family archive so it has to be worth doing.
I've already discovered a small box that I had no idea existed. In my late teens I played for a local football team called Lampton Celtic formed of a bunch of schoolmates plus a few others. It would be no exaggeration to say that we were pretty good, winning everything in sight for the three seasons that we played together. Our finest hour was winning the double of Premier Division champions and knockout cup. My Mum reckons I must have seen the pictures before but I can't remember so. The quality of the photography is a bit iffy but its a great reminder of how I was over thirty years ago.
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