Skip to main content

School Photograph

 






















School Photograph from the late 1930s

 

Begin at the bottom, for here are the youngest

cross-legged, hands clasped over long-stockinged legs

pens in top pockets – the curious and eager

bemused or amused – all looking forward.

 

Above, they are older, kneeling uncomfortably

to increase their height. Ascending

we come to the staff who are seated.

 

Central, the Principal, white-haired and shrunken,

pressed in by a burly begowned headmaster

and that dog-collared pair (do they all wield the cane?)

while a military man simply stares straight ahead.

Here’s a broad-shouldered fellow, the only one smiling

who must be games master.  Beside him, off centre,

radiant in short sleeves, the sole woman smiles.

 

Up to the fourth rank – older boys now,

each with lion passant over his heart.

Serious young men like their seniors, confident

(generally), determined, resolved, no doubt

like their motto, in some sort of Latin.

 

The fifth are stacked up, facing their future –

some confrontational, several arms-crossed.

Strong verbs and valencies, figures of speech

watts and gerundives – they’ve conquered them all

by the time they’ve arrived at the sixth, now promoted

to leadership – shoulders back, heads held high.

 

Behind them lies darkness under brick arches.

Before, a world war awaits this arrangement

prepared like a greengrocer’s stall

where all is in order, before general dispersal.

 

 

How familiar are photographs like this! Well, certainly to my generation.

We can all remember the preliminaries – hair brushing, clean shirts, polished shoes; the summoning to the array of benches, chairs and staging; the placing; the commands; the large camera and active photographer, never quite satisfied…

And the resulting black and white image, mounted and sometimes adorned with the institution’s crest. The photograph was an expensive item, often framed and hung proudly; but with the passing of the years, stacked away somewhere, to be forgotten.

Thus I encountered this one, stuffed in a pile of old family papers – unnamed, undated, untitled. Actually, I’ve worked out, recognising my great grandfather, the school, but somehow that doesn’t much matter, as it’s the generic quality of this picture that resonates.

The eye passes from one individual to another, half recognising faces and postures from one’s own memory – the boys, the types, the masters...

This photograph is so like so many others, yet each face is unique, every person an individual with character revealed – more or less – as they present themselves on this particular day.

And when might that have been?

At first I thought it’d be helpful and interesting to know, but from my ancestor’s appearance revealing his age, the general style and wearing of clothes and the overall flavour, I didn’t find it too difficult to make an informed guess.

But that too doesn’t actually matter very much.

What is significant is the realisation that this display of Liverpool College boys and staff has to be just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

At least some of these spruced-up boys soon will be mobilised, some injured, a few killed; all of them will have their lives with their many plans and anticipations, seriously disrupted.

From one to the next...

What happened – or will happen – to this particular boy? And this one? And the next?

We will never know, just like they themselves presently cannot know.

Photographs have this extraordinary ability to mix past, present and future.

Here in this picture in the scoffings and scowls, the surprises and half smiles, the quizzical and the straight gaze, is the undeniable present – they all live in the immediacy of the captured moment.

Yet all are now dead.  All of this is emphatically past, although everyone – each face I scrutinise – has a future, unknown to them, as all of our futures are.

And there I go, using the present tense as I assess them in the present, in which this photograph enables them to reside, although everyone is most definitely past.

These ruminations on an old school photograph seem appropriate for this month of November, with its various associations – autumn, remembrance/Remembrance, and of course death itself.

But I’m left with a feeling of consolation. The very presence and my recognition of these young (and older) people in all their variety represents life itself – they are here for now, before being scattered by whatever awaits them in the darkness of those arches.

They’re just like us.  Or what we used to be. So in a way, perhaps I’m there as well.

Meanwhile, life goes on, with past, present and future blended. 

And soon enough the photograph will get shoved back into a drawer of family memorabilia.

 

 

 


Comments

  1. I found this school photograph poem very poignant, Thankyou. The poem gives ease to the hard push of time and gives value to the individual in their present moment. I am enjoying a glimpse into your enquiring mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Richard. Stuffed away again, but at the same time so important.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Three Hares

  The Three Hares We continue on our way running, running, running around held together tip to tip so I can hear what she can hear as well as her. And the other follows me in front of her – we are joined up by our ears so we follow, lead and follow running, running, running around we continue on our way. Running, running, running around – no cause for worry – what's to come has already been. The future's past – watch us here – we're going nowhere – the last is first and first is last. Our present moment sees us still although we seem to race – running, running, running around we continue. On our way running, running, running around hearing your persistent questions – why do you keep on asking? We cannot tell you any more. May you share your senses and find soft silence at your centre which is so close, while you go on running, running, running around. The turning of the year, with the various thoughts about the past and the future that c

We were all together there in a foretime

    I find myself attracted to certain words, and here’s one.  Not a word often heard in modern speech, but perfectly proper and well-used since at least the sixteenth century. I came across it in Seamus Heaney’s Section 3 of Keeping Going in his phrase – We were all together there in a foretime. I imagined hearing in my mind’s ear his attractive rich voice rolling it out.   Foretime. Not just, or simply, the past, but a   foretime . (Interesting, that 'a'.  Not 'the', but 'a'). Fore , from before, so it is of course the past, but with a slightly different twist – an added dimension arising from the other words which use fore, as in forecast, foretell or even forehead, when it somehow also looks ahead, to the future… what lies before us? Foretime, Aftertime… be all that as it may, we’ve been here before, it affected us all then, it’s doing the same now and it’s threatening to overwhelm us in the future.   We were all together there in a for

The Signpost

Here’s a signpost – originally distinctive, being unique and handmade, and now even more so, with the evidence of ageing.   … numbers, distances, which way? While all signposts are interesting in their duty to inform, their presentation of choices and their simple declarative presence, I find this one special. It’s not just that it has much to say in terms of where you actually are, in which direction you might choose to go, how far your destination is (down to quarter mile accuracy) and even if your chosen method of transport is suitable. It’s also special in the simple elegance of its design, with the arms’ supports and the bevelled edges of the main post rising to that unexpected point. But the specialness goes further.  My friend James Ravilious took me there just at this time of year, over twenty years ago.  It was then upright and brilliant white, with crisp black letters. He certainly thought it was special, photographing it lovingly, in May 1988 ( Chawleigh Week Cross –