Le Havre, Easter, 1968: Café des Amis stood just a few yards from my school penfriend Philippe’s house in Le Havre.
I was in my first year at art school but Philippe was still attending school.
The Lemaires lived on Rue Roger Salengro, not far from a small park overlooking the town and port of Le Havre, so these long flights of steps were a feature of any walk into town.
I haven’t added any sepia toning to these photographs, that’s down to my poor skills at developing and printing the 35 mm film. They still have a whiff of fixative about them.
In sepia my room at the Lemaire’s has a nineteenth century look to it.
On the homeward journey, after a sleepless night on the ferry, I explored Southampton.
I was met at the station by Mother and Father and the Deacon’s in their new car. We had a Soirée in the evening with Dave on the Guitar, Party games, a Sing-Song and Mrs Odo Ardi singing and Uncle Jack hid father’s Pyjamas* and left his glasses and I went to bed under the kitchen table it being 41½ hours since I got up.”
*My dad once appeared in pyjamas and dressing gown winding up an alarm clock as a gentle hint that it was time to wind up the party.
The countryside has a late summer look to it. Oaks near Horsforth now look drab, dry and dusty. The flowers of creeping thistle have largely turned to downy seed heads. There’s a decadent feeling that the party is almost over, frothy creamy white flowers of Russian vine and trumpets of greater bindweed are festooned over fences. The waste ground flowers that I associate with the end of the summer holidays have appeared: Himalayan balsam, rosebay willowherb, common ragwort, goldenrod and, looking rather dull and mildewed even at its freshest, mugwort.
We take a break at Rheged, the most cunningly disguised of visitor centres, hidden under an artificial craggy mound. I draw the old lime kiln from the cafe.
