Old Stone Vibes
When I was about 11ish there was a junk shop in the town square two minutes from my house. It was full to the brim with STUFF, but I mostly remember the boxes and boxes of old black and white photographs. Portraits of family members, now long dead. Portraits of soldiers in full uniform, who knows whether they made it back to die on home soil. Family snaps, unidentifiable landscapes, seascapes, old ruins and well-tended gardens.
It’s harder and harder to find old photos these days. They’re on EBay but are quite outrageously expensive. And in the future it may become impossible; I have 45,000+ photos stored on a server and who knows where that is. They languish on a mega server somewhere, yet are simultaneously on every Apple device I own. But you can’t find them 50 years from now by rummaging in a dusty box.
Last week I struck a small seam of gold in a charity shop, a batch of black and white photographic scenes of Welsh locations taken in the 1930’s. I know they’re Welsh because the locations had thankfully been written in the back. Just look at those cromlechs in all their glory. And not only that, these really are little slice of history, as I was able to find the locations then look at them on Google Maps. Needless to say a lot has changed. The second cromlech has been rescued from its tangle of brambles, and now has a visitor-friendly cobbled ground.
Looking at old photos allows me to create an inspired imagined narrative. Who took these? Were they on honeymoon around Wales? Were they documenting these sites for their relatives? Why do I, a complete stranger have these photos and not their relatives? Stories, stories, stories.
Row 1: ‘Road to the Beach, Dyffryn’; ‘Major Cromlech, Dyffryn’; ‘Bodlyn Lake’
Row 2: ‘Cwn Bychan Lake’; ‘Cromlech’; ‘Dyffryn, looking towards Moelfra’(?)
Row 3: ‘Dyffryn from Sands’; ‘Cromlech’; ‘Roman Steps’
Apologies to my Welsh friends for any mis-spellings or errors, the handwriting on the photos is a bit scribbly
