A Very Special Memory Book For Iris

When I went up into the loft to get the Christmas decorations down I found this old book I made for Tom, when he was a little boy when he was mad about trains, using an old photo album. Seeing his childish handwriting on it, and then opening it up to look at the pictures, it was as if it was only yesterday ………

 

…… but in fact, it all happened in the autumn of 1984, thirty years ago! Where does the time go?It then seemed so sad to leave those memories alone in the cold attic until the next time someone picked the book up …..

……. so I wondered if I could take them and make something for Iris …. to  live on for another generation, and so I decided to put them in a new, smaller ring bound book ………. but keep the wording exactly the same as in the original book (made to help Tom to learn read) …….

……. and keep the pages as equally plain, so that the pictures told the story, although it would have been so easy to go wild with embellishment!

…… but, I did add everyone's names on each page, so that even though Iris will never have known her Great Granny Shelia or Grandad Andy, she will eventually recognise them and know what a huge part they played in her own Daddy’s life.

The pictures of the Bridgnorth Cliff Railway were especially poignant for me, because about 25 years later Andy did the plumbing and heating work there when they renovated the Top Station to create a tearoom.  It was a job he was very happy at and so every visit I make there is always special, as I know there’s a little bit of him still there ….. looking down at the river…….. and some of his pipework is still visible, I know, because he always pointed it out to me when we were there, saying “I did that!”

We had very many happy times at Bridgenorth, camping by the river or just going on day trips …. and as I said at the beginning of this, it all seems like yesterday.