A few years ago, I moved into my grandparents’ house, and it was exactly how you imagine a grandparents’ house to be: homely, cosy, and purchased in the 1980s for 11 cents and a few gum nuts.
As is so often the case with grandparents’ homes, the walls were covered in an extensive collection of family photos, making it feel less like a house and more like a weird museum dedicated to people I knew intimately.
I, too, have been experimenting with editing.Credit: Michael Howard
I could track my entire life by walking through the house, each room a time capsule from a different year. There I am as an odd-looking baby, on my first day of school, on my last day of high school, graduating from university, and going on holidays.
But sitting on the mantelpiece in the loungeroom, one photo took pride of place: a professionally taken portrait of me, my brother and sister, and our parents. Based on everyone’s hair, the year was 1995, and we looked happy, if not a little cultish.
When the pandemic hit, I spent a lot of time considering this picture because, well, I spent a lot of time sitting in the lounge room.
The most bizarre thing about this photo is that both my brother and I look like Ray Martin from different eras.
The more I looked at it, the more I romanticised the image. It featured my parents (pre-divorce) looking every inch the loved-up couple, their hands around my brother and sister, who pose adorably like two tiny news anchors. Then there’s me, wearing double denim and beaming like a young Ray Martin. A wholesome family, a perfect day!
In a time of great uncertainty, the photo became something to hold on to, a reminder that things were once just fine and would be fine again. Eventually, real life resumed, and I forgot about the photo until one day when my mother pointed at the picture and laughed: “This was the worst day.”
She explained that my brother, sister, and I spent the morning fighting, and none of us were happy with the clothes she’d laid out for us (upon reflection, our anger seems justified).
Give Kate a break. Family photos are always built on lies
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16.03.2024
A few years ago, I moved into my grandparents’ house, and it was exactly how you imagine a grandparents’ house to be: homely, cosy, and purchased in the 1980s for 11 cents and a few gum nuts.
As is so often the case with grandparents’ homes, the walls were covered in an extensive collection of family photos, making it feel less like a house and more like a weird museum dedicated to people I knew intimately.
I, too, have been experimenting with editing.Credit: Michael Howard
I could track my entire........
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