Strangely Strange...

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...But Oddly Normal...

I'm not oft given to wistfulness: introspection and reflection, yes; but wistfulness strikes me seldom and strangely, as was so this afternoon. And the unlikely trigger for this impulse is pictured: a rather unremarkable old pigskin case of mine. This camera bag I bought on a day out to Coventry some forty-eight years ago, when Jane and I went to see the iconic Coventry Cathedral - the only time I've visited the place - and have a wander about what is actually a far more interesting city than most imagine. Like so many places, it was despoiled in the 1960s and '70s by the increasingly powerful road transport and planning lobby that tore so many of our cities and towns apart in the service of the motor vehicle at the expense of local populations and history alike; but in common with so many of these, Coventry has a rich history behind it to be discovered within its precincts.

My response to digging out this simple camera case, though, was on  the surface odd, unexpected and quite unwarranted: the thing has not been used for its designed purpose for decades and as a consequence has lain unattended and gathering dust in various corners of the house for a very long time. The thing is that I have a pre-war Leica outfit which I'm going to sell on eBay imminently, and I have been considering casing the whole thing up in this rather traditional photographer's carry bag to complete the ensemble for sale. But when I picked the old thing up from the box room this afternoon and opened it up in the afternoon sun, I was struck by the most particular wistfulness imaginable. Quite simply, I can't bear to part with the thing; and I think that the reasons for that feeling are two-fold.

Firstly, I bought the case when Jane and I were living in our first place together, our grotty Victorian flat on Stanmore Road; and the case travelled with us to Greece on our first trip abroad in 1979 [blog posts passim], containing my first proper 35mm camera - the Canon F1 that my dad bought for me [also blog posts passim] - and umpteen rolls of Kodak Tri-X film. That first flat and that first foreign trip changed our lives and us forever, cementing our relationship to this day, well over fifty years since we first met. 

Secondly, and I guess somewhat tangentially, the fact that the case is made of a light tan pigskin always brings to mind the rather too expensive briefcase that I so wanted for my move to secondary school in 1966, over which my parents broke the piggy-bank big-time to buy me, but which at least stayed with me until I left school. I think there is something in this combined gestalt that speaks of rites of passage and our movement through life that struck a chord with me so poignantly this afternoon. Somehow, I don't think my old camera case is going anywhere until I at least, have gone myself...

Addendum: Randomly, I just started watching that old documentary about Delia Derbyshire, the woman behind the realisation of the original Doctor Who theme music, who was, of course, born in Coventry: more synchronicity...

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