Tidy up . . and make it snappy

Jun 22 2008 by Colin Patterson, Sunday Sun

ONE of the things I like to do when I have a moment, and inspiration strikes, is have a good old rummage at home.

Just what is in that box file with the words “To be sorted” written on the outside? When I do dare open it up, some of those little envelopes stuffed with old photographs fall out.

Those of you with memories pre DC — digital cameras — will remember these. There was a section for the negative of your film, in case you wanted copies, and the bulk of the envelope was filled with glossy or matt prints of your latest snapping session.

In my case, a fair proportion had those little oval stickers which someone took great delight in sticking on to any photographs that weren’t exactly David Bailey-esque, or even recognisable as anything.

Then there are photo albums. Remember sticking those photograph mounts on the edge of each photo, and then laboriously labelling each of them in white lettering on the black background as my dad did?

This enabled you to identify which photograph you lost when it fell out in 1956. Or, maybe, you started your photograph album in the era of the clear sticky sheet which, in theory, kept a whole page worth of photos exactly in place all at once. In your dreams.

What I now do is scan the more interesting ones into my computer. Then, through the wonder of something called a “slideshow”, whenever I’ve been staring at the computer screen for a few minutes without doing a stroke of work, up pops a lifetime of memories in no particular order.

You can also choose a photo to have as a desktop. My current one is a photograph taken from the sea of the beach at Carvajal, an idyllic undeveloped stretch of southern Spanish beach.

In the background, the hills and palm trees, in the foreground, my friends Christine and Nigel.

I emailed them the photo. They emailed me back to say the beach bar has been demolished, along with the hills which have been flattened, and the blocks of flats have increased tenfold.

But not on my computer. On my computer I’m always just a paddle away from a barbecued sardine fresh from the Mediterranean. Sometimes memories are better than reality.