Old photograph albums are depressing

when there are thirty-four of them to remind you of the way things once were.

As some of you know I am slowly going through the house and giving things away, throwing things away and wondering what to do with things that seem "too good but who will ever use them?"

The photograph albums were out in the "other shed". The small shed where things like the gardening tools and the Senior Cat's conjuring apparatus and many other things have been stored for years. 

P... and I hauled them inside yesterday. They were mostly albums given to my mother by Middle Cat or Brother Cat or albums of trips Mum and the Senior Cat made. There are also pictures of the garden, of flowers and the last two cats we had. There are pictures of my siblings as well as my parents, of relatives no longer with us, of my parents' friends (all no longer with us) and an odd assortment of people I cannot identify. Most of the scenery is alien to me although I can guess some of it.  

There are almost none of me. When I do appear it generally indistinct. I am in profile or my face is half hidden by some other person or my presence is too small to be seen clearly. I do not photograph well but I am also conscious of the fact that my mother avoided taking photographs of me. Middle Cat appears, often with her two boys. Brother Cat appears with his children. The Black Cat appears with other family members or animals.  

Photographs of our childhood are almost all missing. There was 35mm camera in the family but my parents did not take many photographs in our kittenhood. It would have been expensive to get them developed I suppose but our mother did not seem very interested and the Senior Cat had no artistic sense. What photos he took make little sense. He had other ways of describing things.

Middle Cat says her eldest might be interested in some of them. She has not yet asked her youngest. I suspect one small collection for each of them might be the answer. Brother Cat may find the same is true of his two but, like Middle Cat, he has many photographs of the children. They also have the wonderful, almost professional DVDs that his partner has made - all well edited, appropriate music, good quality sound etc.

But I look at all these and think how young everyone looked. There are photographs of the teachers' college "C group reunion" Mum went to every year - and occasionally had here. Yes, most of them are older in the photographs - but none of them are alive now. There is a whole generation gone. Brother Cat and I are moving towards being the age of the people in the photographs. It's depressing.

I want to be rid of the photographs - and most of them are of no value to us as they are not very well composed pictures of scenery from trips or flowers given to my mother. I want to be rid of the photographs because I do not wish to be reminded of the traumas that often lay behind these things. 

Perhaps it is just as well there are so few of me.