Ages

Sometime this past week, 25 days short of my 54th birthday, I reached the age my father was when he died. That's him (Alexander) second from the right in this family portrait taken on 13th September 1975 just 18 months before he passed away. And that's me on the left aged 15, along with my mother (Jean), brother (Alastair), and sister (Alexis).

Everyone said how young he was to die, and I got it intellectually then but only now do I really understand how true it was. And it's so strange seeing him look exactly as I remember him, when everyone else in the shot has moved on through the ensuing 38 years. He was a lovely man, and I think/hope that comes through in this photograph.

The backdrop to this shot is the suit he was wearing for the sitting, and I have also included the receipt for the deposit of £4 he paid to Frank Martin, the Paisley photographer, which I found in one of the pockets along with many other papers (concert programmes, carol service sheets, school cruise parents' evenings, and so on). Our lives together hanging in the darkness of a wardrobe.

LARGE for those interested.