Snapshot: Who was the mystery girl with red hair?
One summer’s day in about 1965, my parents, two brothers, my grandparents and myself packed into our grey Ford Cortina for a day out in the Chilterns. This was before compulsory seatbelts and it was nothing unusual to squash so many people into one car.
My mum had packed a picnic and included some homemade coffee fudge. I always associate the taste with this particular day. We stopped at Coombe Hill, the highest point in the Chilterns, with views over the Vale of Aylesbury and monument to the men of Buckinghamshire who lost their lives in the Boer war.
My gran wanted a photo of myself and two brothers sitting on the steps of the monument. My older brother managed to get out of being in the picture so my younger brother Graham and I had to pose on our own. For some unknown reason, a little girl with ginger hair sat down between the two of us. She hadn’t been playing with us previously and we didn’t know who she was but she seemed keen to be in our photo.
I don’t seem too bothered by the mystery girl, but Graham suggests through his body language that he’s not too sure!
The picture was among my late gran’s collection of slides and, as none of the family had any way to view the slides as the projector has long gone, we recently had them scanned to a CD.
I wonder who the mystery girl was and where she is now, and also if she remembers photo-bombing our family photo in the 1960s.
As a footnote, my daughter (born in the mid 1980s) has the same colour of hair as the mystery girl from our photo – something that my mum often comments on to this day.
Amanda Gregory
Playlist: Fun fun fun on the Autobahn
Eagle by Abba
“And I dream I’m an eagle / And I dream I can spread my wings / Flying high, high, I’m a bird in the sky / I’m an eagle that rides on the breeze”
When this song comes on I’m back, instantly, slow-dancing round the kitchen with my two left feet, inside my own little fantasy world. Unfortunately, though, as in most parts of life, change is always imminent.
I was six when I first heard the song Eagle – my mother and grandfather were huge Abba fans; we listened to the Gold album non-stop, in the car or in the kitchen while we did the washing up together. My grandfather enjoyed taking my hands and dancing along with me, his technique on par with mine.
It was around this time that we went on holiday – my parents, grandfather and myself – to a beautiful little spot in the Schwarzwald, Germany. My grandfather always loved it there, the place where he grew up and lived before the war and before he moved to the UK.
The soundtrack to the drive down to Schwarzwald was filled with Abba songs – especially Eagle. We would scream this ballad at the top of our lungs, pelting down the motorway with the windows down, the crisp Easter air blowing against our faces. The Autobahn, Eagle – it was pure joy.
However, two months after the holiday, my grandfather was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. This meant that over time he would lose function of his muscles, eventually leaving him in a wheelchair and ultimately unable to move, talk or eat in his remaining years – a man trapped in his own body.
I was eight when my grandfather passed away. He died of a heart attack, a shocking and devastating moment for us all. Thinking back upon our memories together and his love for Abba, I couldn’t help but remember the song Eagle we loved so much, and how he was now finally free.
Holly-Elizabeth Toney
We love to eat: Uncle Pete’s pink parsnip dip
Ingredients
A handful of parsnips
A few cooked beets, best from a packet
1 tsp chilli oil
A dollop of yoghurt, plain or Greek
Cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste
Boil the parsnips until soft. Let them cool down, then blend with all the ingredients in a food processor until pureed. Garnish with the flower of a chive – see my photograph.
My brother and I used to joke that Uncle Pete invented the slow movement. He inched around our house at a snail’s pace. Near the end, he was as healthy as his roll-ups and home-brewed cider. He got his five a day in the berries he scrumped and turned into wine, or from his elderflower brew and sloe gin. Yet when Mum complained that she couldn’t get us to eat any veg, he’d tut tut, “Nonsense.”
Then he’d make up his summer concoctions – dips. Avocado with frozen peas, mint with a dollop of yoghurt zizzed in the blender. Staying true to his style of health, he’d let us dip pork scratchings, chips or crisps in them. My favourite was his pink dip, made with parsnips and beets and Indian spices – he was a curry fan. He’d garnish it with the purple head of a chive so it looked like a raspberry ice cream with a gumdrop perched on top.
D Smith
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