60 is the new 18 ..

The New Year's rushing on - as it always does - and I was quite happy with that until a thought occurred to me yesterday. As it's now 2019 I can safely say "I'll be 60 next year!" Eeek! I'm not old enough to be 60!..

The flip side to that, of course, is that I'm very lucky to have reached this stage of my life. There was a sign above the bar in the pub I used to drink with my Dad that read 'Old age is a privilege denied to many' and, as I get older, I realise more and more just how true that is. A lot of you won't know Diane Oxberry, but she was the weather-girl on the BBC's North-West news programme for over 25 years. A real chirpy, happy fixture. She died last week at 51. Suddenly and shockingly and I didn't want to let something that awful pass without mentioning it. Poor old Diane. Except, she wasn't old, and she'll never get to be old. Even as old as 60 ..

Ps: That's me circa 1963. I thought we'd end the blog with a smile .. !

No age at all ..

I'm addicted to all these bloomin' Wedding programmes that seem to have appeared on telly lately. 'Don't tell the Bride' - 'I want that Wedding' - 'How the rich get hitched' and so on, but this week saw another one that had me squirming!..

'Baby-Faced Brides' was all about - well, you can guess! Kids getting married, basically! Teenagers, twenty-year-olds and so on! Ugh, it was awful! My whole body was screaming out "Too young, too young.." but none of them listened and all of 'em went ahead and tied the knot, their flabbergasted parents looking on with ... er, well, looking on, anyway!..

I've been trying hard to think of the youngest couple I've ever photographed but I think early twenties is about as low as I can get. This week, though, I was at the other end of the spectrum with the Wedding of Margaret and Barry. I'm not giving away ages but let's just say that I've never had to get a Wedding couple's grand-children on a photograph before! It was a fantastic day all round though - probably because this couple actually knew what they were doing in life ..

Getting on a bit ..

When I first set up my studio it was in one of the many and vast empty rooms at O'Neill Towers and, to give it a dry run, I asked some nearby neighbours if they'd come in for a family portrait. Yesterday I bumped into the daughter of the family - dairy aisle at Sainsbury's since you ask - and asked her what she was up to these days...

"I'm a teacher!" she said ..

Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather, and the look on my face must have said just that! "I'm twenty-five now, you know..." she laughed, as I threw my zimmer frame out of the shot, and it dawned on me that those test pictures - those sweet family photos - were now 14 years old! The woman in front of me was an eleven year old girl when I took them! I mean, come on, they were on film, for goodness sake!..

It kind of brought home the shock there must be on the part of all those Dads that walk their daughter down the aisle on their Wedding Day. Their Princess, their little girl, has turned into a woman in the time it's taken to change a vest and go for a pint with the darts team! Now I've never had kids, but when I shoot a Wedding I'm always very tuned in to catching any of that emotion on the faces of those Dads as they look down that aisle with their pride and joy on their arm. It's just dawned on me that part of that expression is the realisation that they've grown old ...