© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Board with games: when childhood was slow

I've wondered, recently, what on Earth I did with my time when I was a little child. Seeing the manic smorgasbord of potential entertainment options for the very young these days makes me suppose my own distant early childhood must have been exceedingly dull by comparison. There was no internet, no instant access to streaming videos on mobile phones and way fewer toys than are around today. Television turned up in our family when I was about four or five, but its offerings for children were limited and my parents rationed it - at first, anyway.…

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Dads and grandpas, a Fathers’ Day gallery

Fathers' Day's approach led to me to hunt through my photo collection for pictures of dads (and granddads) and their kids (and grandkids). I was a bit surprised, at first, that I didn't have as many as I thought I would. Lots of mums with kids, but much fewer with dads. Maybe, I thought, way back in the earlies fathers weren't necessarily that closely involved with their children when they were very small. I guess it was mostly the job of mothers - as indeed it usually still is today - to deal with the little…

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Dressing up: a goofy costume gallery

People love dressing up, but not everybody can score a role on stage. Family photo albums are a rich source of images of amateur actors, young and old, pretending for a time to be somebody else. Of course, almost all of these photos would raise eyebrows today for cultural appropriation. She's a fairy, of course, with spotless outfit in a lovely woodland setting. From a glass plate negative, circa 1910. Remember "F Troop"? This classic 1960s colour slide by Eric Sutherland shows youngsters Kerry Stahlut and Mark Sullivan at Newcastle's East End. The young photobomber in…

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