Monday, August 04, 2003

time marches on

I'm stuck with archival cataloguing at work at the moment: it's one of my least favorite jobs and one I don't see the immediate value of given the raft of other things that need doing about the place before term starts again, but ours is not to reason why and all that.

Anyway, right now I'm archiving a bunch of old school photographs from the middle of the last century, starting in the 30s and going through to the 70s, there is an endless procession of Rugby 1st XV, Prefects, Athletic Team and Cricket 1st XI group photograps, each with a different group of kids staring out from under the silver oxide.

The Cricket photos have taken on an odd quality for me here and now archiving them: back in the mid 40s the school seems to have appointed a professional to come and coach the team, and he stayed, appearing in each photo, each successive year looking a little older and a little more faded until finally in the 66-67 he's aged himself out of existence.

Working on the archives is a constant reminder that this place, the school I work for, swallows people sometimes: the archives are full of 'lifers' - names that crop up again and again for decades before disapearing suddenly...

I have colleagues approaching retirement who were pupils here once, and the thought, today, here in this empty library, rings out like a warning bell over an empty sea: The time is fast approaching for me to come ashore from this part of my own voyage and begin a new part somewhere else, somewhere that people don't get washed away into history with their old school tie still firmly round their neck.

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