We don't see many of these today . . .

. . . but a mention on TV recently of the Austin Seven, a popular British runabout of the 1920s-30s, reminded me of my soft-top model (the car, not the lady!) made in 1931, the year of my birth,  although I only bought it in the early 1950s, and on searching my memorabilia I found this b&w glass negative, broken in half due to careless storage.

To repair such damage in the pre-digital age would have involved printing from the two halves joined with sticky tape and retouching with a paintbrush using process black and process white paint, specially formulated to match the silver salts emulsion of the photographic image, and copying to produce a new negative from which to make a finished print - a time consuming operation demanding a lot of patience and a steady hand.

Today, however, a passable result was easily achieved digitally in little more than ten minutes instead of the several hours it would have taken 60 years ago, but thanks to digital technology, will never be needed again as we don't see many broken glass negatives today, either!

 

I should add for the record that the lady, the car, and myself have parted company in the mists of time, but memories remain through the wonders of photography.