This lovely couple are my beloved parents. Garry, real name Garland Windsor, very fancy but likes to be known as Garry and plain Ann (she always says this but there is nothing plain about her.) My Dad turned eighty one yesterday. (Happy birthday Dad) My parents met when they both worked at Hogarths department store in Coventry sixty four years ago. Ann was fifteen and Garry was eighteen. They started dating and they will have been happily married for sixty years on April 4th. These two oldies mean the world to me. Along with my children they are my everything. How things change as the years fly by. In the beginning your parents will love and care for you, teach you good manners and what is right from wrong, provide you with everything you need and more. There will be times you will blame them for everything that is wrong in your life. (you have to blame someone and they will be the closest thing to you, it goes with the territory and comes along with the invisible job description of being a parent) Then one day you have children and realise just what all of those years of your parents being your parents actually meant and what they must have sacrificed and gone through. By the time you have learned this valuable lesson you realise that you are quite fond of them and can’t imagine life without them.
My Dad has always looked after his health, ate healthy, he never drank and never smoked. (he also never swore) My Mum did like a drink, that is who we (my sister, brother and I) must take after. A gentleman, fitness fanatic and a very keen cyclist being a member of a few cycling clubs in Coventry over the years he was never happier than when he was out on his bike. Five years ago life took a different turn for my Mum and my Dad when he suffered from quite a severe stroke after having a routine knee operation. Then again this year when he had a hip replacement which resulted in a blood clot that stretched from his hip to his knee. I didn’t even know you could get clots that big! Now days are filled with special dietary requirements, a long list of medicines, administered by my doting Mum. Lot’s of doctor and hospital appointments, visits from the nurses who come to take his bloods and mad rushes to make it to the toilet on time! Days can be long and hard for them both but they are lucky to still have each other and I am lucky to have them both here.
People especially photographers are always telling other people that it is a must to get photographs of their children especially the first year as it goes by in the blink of an eye, they change so much. Also to be seen in pictures with your little ones because the time goes too quickly and you can never get it back. That it is important to document yourselves in photographs as a photograph is a frozen memory in time. Things can change in an instant. We take for granted that we will be here forever. We put off today what we can do tomorrow or next week, next month. I wish I had photographs of these two when I was younger but I don’t. However this week I was reminded how important it is to get these memories while we can. So yesterday on my Dads birthday I called my Mum out of the blue and asked if I could get them both in my studio. Thankfully for once she didn’t make an excuse but whole heartedly agreed and so we here we have it. Something for me, my siblings, their grandchildren, great grandchildren and their future great, great grandchildren to have and to cherish. Though days may be hard I have a lot of laughs with these two. (there is also a lot more swearing going on and much of it from my father!)
I keep asking my boys if we can have a family photograph but am always met with excuses. As the years go by I am also becoming more and more reluctant to step in front of the camera as I am getting bigger by the day and my face is beginning to sag! Just below is my favourite photo ever of my Mum and Dad taken yesterday. They are not young, my mother is not slim (no offence mum) they have wrinkles and white hair. My Dad has tired eyes but just look at those laughs and more than that look at the at the love. Just look at the love!
So by hook or by crook I will be dragging my boys to a local studio near me so that I can at least have a decent photograph of all of us together. I think I will be getting Grandma and Grandpa in on the act also.There is never a right time to get in front of a camera. It’s always THE right time!
