Snapshots of Childhood

On a recent visit to my brother's house, our two wives were poring over the many childhood photographs of us as young boys. Lots of cries of laughter from our wives, just cringes from my brother and I. Many comments followed like, isn't he cute, oh look at all that curly hair, as opposed to the current distinct lack of such.

The two women noticed that whenever we were both in the same photo, one of us would often be shirtless, the other happily wearing one. We then began a story explaining that as we were from such a poor family whilst growing up that the two of us had to share the one shirt. In other earlier photos, in our at that time short lives once again one of us would be in shorts, the other without, or later one in shorts and the other in long trousers. We explained once again our poor state and that we only had the one pair of shorts, and for the cold winter months only the one pair of long trousers, going to school wearing shorts in winter was not good as we had to do this on alternate days. This conversation continued on throughout the evening, going through our items of attire, our shoes, jacket etc. Also in the winter we had to alternate going outside due to our only having the one coat between us. Hat and gloves were out of the question, if your hands were cold then what were pockets for?

We waffled on about how we had to alternate our days at school due to sharing a school uniform and other school equipment.

As I was (and still am for that matter) the older brother, once I had completed my education and left school, I also left home and went into the army. There were photo's of the next few years of the family on different days out or other trips to various places and I was never in them, we could easily have said the truth of where I was, but no, we continued on in this frame of mind and rambled on (a little like I am now) about how it was my brothers turn for the clothes and I was left at home.

Throughout my childhood of the 1960's and early 70's we were often fed on a minimal budget, money was very tight for our parents, there was five hungry children to feed. For that evening's entertainment over the photo's we just played on the fact that in many of the pictures one or other of us was shirtless. Many kids get photographed minus an item of clothing, as kids get too hot they take them off without a thought. Forty something years ago my being shirtless on the beach would not have raised an eyebrow, back to the present day and it could well clear the beach!