thoughts

In a manner of speaking, I had my one and only photographic exhibition when I was eight or nine years old. It was no great shakes! Come the summer term of 1936 or 1937 I won a school prize. I’ve no idea what it was for, but I asked ‘could I have a camera, please’ – and the kind folk of St Mary’s Church of England Elementary School gave me a Kodak Hawkeye 620 Major. A simple box camera with a fixed exposure and a fixed aperture.

During the summer holiday of that year, we spent a day at Weston-Super-Mare and I took a few family photographs which were ‘exhibited’ on the green baize notice board in the school corridor when the next term began.

Why should that random thought suddenly pop into my head and make me engage Word to share a few words with you?

A daughter and a granddaughter and granddaughter’s friend are staying with us overnight before setting off for Weston-super-Mare in the morning. They are going to a concert on the sands. The hearing of the name sparked off the memories.

I’ve only once been back to Weston-super-Mare in more recent years. It’s changed, of course. And it hasn’t changed altogether. The special area we went to was designed as an all-day safe accessible swimming area. When the sea came in, it refreshed the water in the pool. When most of the sea went out, the pool was there for us to enjoy. I could see the structure was still there. Not quite boarded up. Simply securely padlocked as though to keep it closed for the winter.

I took a couple of photographs. From a distance. The atmosphere and the fringe of dusk tinged the whole image with blue. We got very sunburned, when we were young.

francis cameron, oxford, 30 june 2012

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