Back in the archives

Slowly, slowly I'm sifting through old slides and negatives, discarding the unusable and storing the rest properly.  This week, being off Nana duties because of the virus, I've got back into it, now that I'm getting some energy back.
From 1983 to 1985 I ran a playbus for local Gypsy Traveller families in Sheffield  (in those days we - and they - used both terms).  We worked both on the two council-funded sites and at the far more numerous informal/illegal stopping places too. Times were harsh. Local pubs freely displayed notices in their windows: "No Irish, No Travellers". The scrap business that had supported many families was failing, as local steel-making shrank drastically, to be replaced with cheap imports.
But these two grainy images aren't about that. Sometimes I took my battered Olympus OM1 with me, and these are a reminder of visits on sunny days, checking in with Mums and little ones (extra) - our remit was health advice as well as  play sessions for children, and we worked closely with local health visitors.  In good weather, water play was the star attraction, and I really like the indistinct but strong echo of pure delight in this little girl's face, as she moves water from a bottle into a funnel and into a bucket. It's exactly what I watch Simone doing these days, when she's here.