"I found this photograph... tender face of black and white"

I don't head back to my hometown very often these days, but when I do, and I'm in the bedroom where I spent far too much of my childhood, I have had the same ritual over the last six years.

When my paternal grandfather died, we found a cache of old photos in his flat, maybe 100 or so black and white pics. I go through all of these when I'm back. There a lot of him when he was a kid, and it's strange to see the stern old man, made so by experiences of war and personal loss, as a smiling young boy alongside his kid sisters.

There's also a few documents, one of which is my great-great-grandparents' wedding certificate, from 1907. Perhaps appropriately for this time of year (just about!), they were called Joseph and Mary and it feels strange to hold something that symbolises the beginning of their lives together. As I recall, he lived just about long enough to see Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

There's also their youngest daughter's wedding certificate. Her name was Jane, born in 1911, and her death in 1989 was my first experience with loss. From the photos, there are plenty of her, as she was close to just about everyone in my family. When my dad lost his mother, she kept him and grandpop from totally falling apart by making sure they actually ate - men of the time being totally unable to cook.

Again, it's a surprise to see the sweet old lady I knew in her younger days, wearing shades and smoking cigarillos. There's a pic of her wedding day too, in 1937.

Cool lady

Getting married in a black dress - fantastic. Maybe it was common back then for all I know, but it seems pretty damn hip to me. She still lived in the house in that pic by the time I came around, and I spent many a happy weekend there and playing in the ruins of nearby Penrith castle with her watching and warning me and my brother not to climb too high up the medieval walls.

What always frustrates me is all the pictures is those with people in whom my father and I have no idea about. Are they relations? Friends? What's the story? I can only wish my granddad had shared when he was alive and filled in the gaps.

I am directly related to somebody in this picture. 

Take this one, for example. Where is it? What's the occasion? Loath as I am to reduce to cliché, but it is tremendously evocative of a world that no longer exists, especially when I consider the people inside are somehow connected to me. Though I go back maybe twice a year tops, Cumbria remains a huge part of me and I think always will. Grandpop's pics remain a reminder of why this is so.