Dear LPG,

I have learnt that there is many a good reason for taking a picture and I have also learnt that LPG is right when it tells us that every one of them tells a story of its own.  The other thing that your pages have taught me is that the obvious reason for taking them is simple. We take them to capture people and moments in our lives so that we can look back and remember them. 

When we were young photographs were expensive, so we took pictures of each other at events that we did not want to forget, but the backstory of so many of our photos has expanded as they have become cheaper to afford and quicker to access.

But LPG writers have also taught me the value of using them for keeping track of the many things that we so gradually acquire without even realising.   As we get older, especially as we get older, they can become your record of those things.

I am no great photographer, but I spent some time learning a little more about my phone during the pandemic, and I have recently been having a bit of a sort out which I suspect is one of the pastimes of many an older person.  If you still live at home, especially if it is the one that you shared with your family as the little ones grew up, when you take a good sober look at all the things that you have accumulated it can be quite frightening. 

It is true that I used to sew and knit back in the day, but I had no idea that I had so many buttons until I had a sort out, but part of the reason for sorting any collection once you think you are no longer likely to need it, is often to give it away.  I have to say that I find the giving away part really difficult but there is another way of looking back. 

Before you take that box to the charity shop, I strongly suggest that you take your memory picture of whatever it is so that you can still look back and remember.

FT, Croydon