Belonging
This year got off to the most pleasing of starts.
The spark was the receipt of a number of beautiful old
family photographs which had remained hidden from view for over sixty
years.
Before the turn of the year, a
remarkable coincidence occurred when on separate occasions, two different
people in entirely different places had alerted me to their existence.
Those contacts prompted me to engage in some digging in
social media.
As a result, I realised
that the son of my late father’s best friend owns a substantial archive of brilliant
photographs. Not just that, he has gone
the extra mile by converting his late father’s negatives and slides into a
high resolution digital format.
Before contacting him directly, I discovered that the
collection provided what could only be described as a snapshot of the social
history of Omagh, my home-town, from the 1950’s onwards.
I gazed in wonderment at what looked like
expertly-taken photos. They included all sorts of civic occasions from the spectacular town
carnival complete with brass bands, troupes of gymnasts, trades vehicles dressed up, and childrens fancy dress: -
to the annual car hill-climb at Syonfin: -
and the Orange Order parade on 12 July with its immaculately turned-out kilted bagpipers: -
All of these images of 1950's Omagh transported me back to my youth. I was a participant and spectator at many of these events.
to the annual car hill-climb at Syonfin: -
and the Orange Order parade on 12 July with its immaculately turned-out kilted bagpipers: -
All of these images of 1950's Omagh transported me back to my youth. I was a participant and spectator at many of these events.
The discovery also sent my
adrenalin into a glorious rush producing a huge sense of anticipation at what
else the archive might contain.
Digressing slightly (but just for a paragraph), in some
ways my sneak peek at the hidden collection reminded me of a series of books
published annually by our former family doctor after his retirement. His photo books were undertaken as a charity
fund-raising project on behalf of Omagh Rotary Club.
In response to an approach from the
industrious medic himself before he published anything, I loaned him a few old
prints dating from the
late 1920’s of my grandparents and of my father as a young sportsman.
These appeared in some of
the earlier volumes.
Having called time
on that project in 2015 after publishing volume number 22[i], the good doctor sadly passed
away in the autumn of 2016.
By dint of his efforts over two decades, I had been made awareof the value of photographs and how the effective collating of images can remind us so vividly of social change.
By dint of his efforts over two decades, I had been made awareof the value of photographs and how the effective collating of images can remind us so vividly of social change.
Having decided not to bother the keeper and owner of
these hitherto unknown photographs until after the end of the recent festive
season, I made contact with him earlier this month. After a few exchanges, he kindly offered to
extract photographs relating to my family.
With impressive alacrity, he duly sent me almost fifty shots the very
next day.
Some were grainy black and white photos: -
Some were grainy black and white photos: -
 |
| Picnic at Mullaghmore County Sligo behind the family car, a Mayflower |
a larger number were colour snaps so clear that they look like
they were taken yesterday on a modern digital device: -
In the current era there is a sense of comfort in
re-establishing contact with the past and the customs of your native place.
Without adding to the fashionable hyperbole,
terms like “post-truth era” and “a massive disconnect” between people and their
Governments are regularly cited like code-words to describe the fundamental rationale
for election results which have confounded opinion pollsters in 2016.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that as a
result of the international economic crisis of 2008 and global movement of business,
the ruling political system has become an élite which has ignored ordinary
working people.
Different forces appear to have contributed to the spirit of alienation and revolt. One is the ultimate disconnection when wars
displace whole populations. Another is the
impacts on communities and families caused by major economic shock, such as the
closure of long-established industries. The result is political upheaval and social
change on both sides of the Atlantic.
To try and make sense of so complex a subject, the
literary author and journalist Fintan O’Toole recently gave a public talk well
away from the hustle and bustle of global power. The venue was the brand new Seamus Heaney
Homeplace arts centre in Bellaghy, a small village in Northern Ireland.
As an established author himself, O’Toole was well qualified and subtle enough to
place the global economic and migration crises in a literary context. In support, he cited Heaney’s second poetry
collection, “Wintering Out.”
That poetry collection, he reminded his audience, is deeply
grounded in a sense of belonging.
Belonging, he urged, means different things – we belong, we feel
comfortable, we have a sense of ownership, our place. But what about incomers, immigrants, making
them welcome, to feel that they belong or not.
He embarked on something of a Socratic dialogue to ponder what this
sense of belonging means in practice and how might it change post-Brexit.
Whatever the future holds, the rediscovery of realistic
images from the past warms the heart in a winter of popular discontent with
politics.
It also reinforces personal
pride in parental and grandparental achievements and ipso facto in their contribution
to the community. Their legacy emanated
from what they faced in the stark years after two international conflagrations and
the most enormous period of social change in human history.
That was to bequeath our generation with
prospects and opportunities, not to squandered, and which are vastly superior
to those which they faced then.
In 1905, my grandfather opened a shop in Omagh selling bicycles as well as sporting guns and ammunition.
In subsequent years, the business diversified into other lines, particularly records, televisions, radios, wet batteries, musical instruments and - at Halowe'en, fireworks.
This photograph (also from the long-lost archive[ii]) was taken at an event to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the business. It includes staff, family, friends, local dignatories as well as commercial suppliers.
Photography is a creative art. In the manner of a Rembrandt painting, a shaft of light shines down on my mother as she and my father sit in the middle of the second row. Her satin dress gleams for the camera.
©Michael McSorley 2017
