Yourself as a child - please contribute.

[Gary R. Smith]

Love the look on your mother’s face. I wonder what she’s thinking?

Thanks Rob! At the tender age of 21, mom was a babe... I'm pretty sure she wasn't thinking: boy this is fun, I think I'll have 5 more spaced out over the next 11 years (but that's what she did). My cousin who was both a lawyer as well as a police officer was 1 year older than me and he just passed. All of our days are numbered.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Wow, that's a lot of kids. My maternal grandmother had 13! And when I was born, we )including two elder sisters) were living with them. Quite a commune.

Sorry to hear about your cousin!

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Wow, that's a lot of kids.

I can't imagine being either a) pregnant or b) tending an infant for 13 solid years.

Sorry to hear about your cousin!

More sorry to hear of your stroke!

 

[Chris Bennett]

Well now Rob, I didn't think I was going to be able to share an offering to this thread. However, we drove down to the south coast this last weekend to celebrate my father's 90th birthday and I was able to come away with his slide collection, following a promise to my mother that I would scan a selection of them for him. I know that, within those three boxes of family history, there are many moments of Chris related embarrassment, captured and preserved for your enjoyment. Bear with me and all will be revealed.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Looking forward to your embarrassing moments, Chris. emoji at the ready!

 

[Chris Bennett]

Looking forward to your embarrassing moments, Chris. emoji at the ready!

OK then @Rob MacKillop. This is myself (2nd from right) with my mother and sisters, on holiday in Skye, circa 1970. We had just built a rather stunning replica of Thor Heyerdal's papyrus boat, 'Ra II', which my sister Julia is proudly holding. The real Ra II had just successfully crossed the Atlantic and we were hoping to repeat that magnificent feat with ours. It managed to last a heroic 10 seconds before it sank.

 

[Brian Moore]

OK then @Rob MacKillop. This is myself (2nd from right) with my mother and sisters, on holiday in Skye, circa 1970. We had just built a rather stunning replica of Thor Heyerdal's papyrus boat, 'Ra II', which my sister Julia is proudly holding. The real Ra II had just successfully crossed the Atlantic and we were hoping to repeat that magnificent feat with ours. It managed to last a heroic 10 seconds before it sank.

A wonderful portrait of a clearly adventurous family.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Great picture. When you say you are second from the right, I took right as actually being left, and thought, “Really?” LOL. Love the description, the linear set up, and the triangle shape formed by the collective heads. You must have crossed on the Ferry in those days?

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Chris, in this photo you don't seem so much interested in building Egyptian papyrus boats as you do in shooting the photographer. Hmm, bad boy, didn't you know you'd be shooting yourself one day?

 

[Chris Bennett]

Great picture. When you say you are second from the right, I took right as actually being left, and thought, “Really?” LOL. Love the description, the linear set up, and the triangle shape formed by the collective heads. You must have crossed on the Ferry in those days?

Yes, I vividly remember the ferry, Rob. This was our first UK holiday after returning from some years overseas and the Skye one felt a little safer than the ones I had been on there.

 

[Chris Bennett]

Chris, in this photo you don't seem so much interested in building Egyptian papyrus boats as you do in shooting the photographer. Hmm, bad boy, didn't you know you'd be shooting yourself one day?

Of course! I was trying to commit patricide in order to get my hands on the camera. Luckily for him, my guns misfired on that day - I didn't get ownership of the camera for years! See here for more on the camera: https://realphotographersforum.com/threads/notes-from-the-top-left-corner.24049/
...and here: https://realphotographersforum.com/threads/notes-from-the-top-left-corner.24049/post-190835

 

[Chris Bennett]

Another shot of myself and my three sisters, this time taken in about 1968 in the Swat valley in Pakistan. Another family holiday - a trip of a couple of hundred miles or so, in the car that was in the previous photo. This one confirms my early credentials as a master photographer, and anyone who has ever used a Weston Master light meter will instantly recognise the object which is hanging around my neck!
Swat is a beautiful mountainous area in the northwest of Pakistan, sadly known more recently for terrorism related violence that occurred there.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

I had one just like that, but I wasn’t cool enough to have one at that age. Cool family!

 

[Pete Askew]

I'm feeling left out! The pose of your middle sister(?) in the first is rather 'striking'. What a great couple of pictures.

 

[Laurence Griffiths]

My brother (on the left) and me. I must have been about 3 or 4 at that stage.

 

[Brian Moore]

My brother (on the left) and me. I must have been about 3 or 4 at that stage.

View attachment 19675

Lovely portrait, Laurence. Do you remember it being taken?

 

[Laurence Griffiths]

Lovely portrait, Laurence. Do you remember it being taken?

Thanks. I don't remember it being taken. Nor do I remember pinching my brother on his leg. He must have been really irritating that day.

 

[Brian Moore]

Nor do I remember pinching my brother on his leg.

I noticed that and wondered if it was deliberate.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Haha. And in matching outfits too.

 

[Beth Anthony]

maybe 2 years old. not much had changed.