The little boy on the left of this picture is my father, aged about two, his older brother would have been about four. It was taken in about 1915 for their father to take into the army as he went off to fight in WW1. My father looks fairly close to tears - his hesitant expression is the forerunner of a scowl seen in photos of my brother and myself and my daughter at a similar age. My father and mother both died 21years ago, in their mid-seventies. Both had been ill for a while but had carried on as best they could, my mother surviving my father by about six months then dying suddenly and unexpectedly just before Christmas. They both died as they had lived - quietly, without fuss and wthout causing anyone any trouble.
The best advice my mother could give was 'if you don't know what to do, do nothing, keep quiet and wait, and something will come to you'. I'm taking that advice at the moment while I try to sort out several things at once, I'd like to think she's nodding in approval.
