Hilary -The photograph - Week four

Hilary - Photograph

I have been sitting in this box for so long I have almost forgotten the day it happened.

I had been out for a walk. It was only a short walk from our hotel to the pier and I had asked for an ice cream as soon as I had arrived. I remember the dark,chocolate ice cream running down my chin and my Daddy laughing as he folded his hankie before wiping it off. I laughed too. I was always a happy child.  Mummy and Daddy used to take me and my two brothers and sister out every Sunday, come rain or shine. This time we were on a short holiday in Southwold,

 “It’s healthy to have a good, bracing walk whatever the weather” Daddy used to say, and we would dutifully put on our wellies and mackintoshes  or our Sunday best depending on if it was raining or dry, and follow him and Mummy down the road like a little row of ducklings.

On the Sunday it happened, I had been straggling behind looking at the fairground that had set up on the Green opposite the pier. I was enthralled by the vibrant primary colours and the way the men were putting the pieces of metal and wood together which would finally form the rides that tonight would see young girls screaming, mostly to attract the attention of the young men who worked on the fair I suspected.

He walked up to me and asked if I was lost. “ No, Mummy and Daddy are………” I looked ahead and behind me but could see no sign of them. “Mummy!” I sounded like a little lamb, bleating. Tears started to well up in my eyes. The young man quickly held my hand in his and in a soft, Irish brogue,  said “ Don’t worry little one, it’ll be ok”.

He held my hand tightly as we walked along the pier. I trusted him to find my Mummy and Daddy and was happy to have his strong grasp protecting me. After a little while, I began to tire and consequently began to cry. “When are we going to find them” I sobbed. Suddenly he produced a camera from his jacket pocket.

“Do you want to take my picture ? “ he asked.  My tears immediately subsided as this new and exciting prospect drove away the tiredness.  “ Yes please”.  I smiled and took the camera from him. “ I’ll go stand over here, and I’ll take one of you too” he said.

He spent the evening in the makeshift dark room, which he used to develop all the pictures of the girls he had taken.  Over the past fifteen years, since he started working on the fair at the tender age of fourteen, he must have taken at least twenty pictures. He continued to take them until he died from liver disease at the age of sixty five. An alcoholic for most of his life, he ended his days in a hostel. No one knew him, or where he came from.  When they found him , his only personal possessions were a box of photographs. The faces of all the children obscured by a camera.  Untraceable.

I am witness to the others who came after me. All of the young girls whose lives were ended before they had properly begun. One day perhaps, someone will take me from this box  and my family will finally be released from their misery.

Meanwhile, I sit and look out from the little box of photographs in the window of the antique market on the green in Southwold. I watch, and I wait.