Phyl Payne

News

THE NEW OWNER

The new owner said:
I find the gift generates a range of responses and emotions in me. The link with history is comforting and gives some context to modern life. The gift came shortly following the receipt of a bundle of old photographs formerly owned by my late uncle. Most of these, like the photographs in the gift, were anonymous. Each of the people in the photographs could recount a whole life history - this is both intriguing and sad. They are not recognised, recalled or remembered, yet their histories are valid and complex.
The coin is vaguely recognisable to me as a legal tender from my childhood and links me to history and to the photographs. There is a poignant feeling to the passage of time - also life affirming as generations succeed one another. The coin seems well used, it has done its job and is retired into posterity.
The gift prompted me to purchase an album to mount the photographs and the coin alongside those owned by my uncle.
I intend to keep the album to hand both for myself and others, rather than hide it away. The images and history will develop in the imagination - a flawed testimony to the subjects.