Luke ponders ANZAC Day. I was in the Cubs too, and didn’t progress beyond them. In fact, I got chucked out for being too old in the end. I joined with my mate Glynne Stentiford (where is he now?) following a talk to our primary school by our local Akela, Mrs Cleall. Our pack held the record for the biggest number of brothers in the same pack at the same time – we even got on telly for it. Well, I say “we” – I didn’t, because my brother, being nearly ten years older than me, wasn’t in the Cubs.
Anyway, the point of this posting was to say that I did the parade thing too. I’m not sure if we ever did Remembrance Day (I’m sure we did), but I remember being the standard bearer for a St George’s Day service where the Cubs were represented by me and a handful of others (three I think – I can’t remember their names now, it is so long ago). I’m not sure if either of my parents were there – I’m sure one of them at least must have been – but as far as I am aware there is no photographic record of the event.
Our family isn’t very good at taking pictures of people. Pictures of plants – fine. Pictures of cats – no problem. But people? …hardly ever. Which in a way is a shame. There are some things that you want to have pictures of – there is, somewhere, a transparency of my very first girlfriend, Jill, in some obscure professional photo format that my brother took. That’s the sort of thing I mean – the sort of thing that your future wife could show your future children and say “my god – look at the sort of girl your father went out with before me!”
Worse still are pictures of me as a child. These are, mercifully, rare, so my parents haven’t had too much ammunition for embarrassing me in front of newly-acquired girlfriends. Rest assured that, if ever I manage to persuade some poor woman to be the mother of my child[ren], there will be plenty of photos to use as ammunition to make sure they (the child[ren]) don’t stay out too late, go out with that dodgy geezer/girl from number 43 or wreck the motor in their teenage years.
separating the wanted from the unwanted