The Farmer Remembers the ‘Evacuees’

This image is one of a set, for my cinematic module, a narrative of a farmer recalling his memories….

The image was taken late evening with a tungsten light behind the camera directed on to the children, and an off camera flash directed at the farmer.

The children are blurred and distant towards the background , where as the farmer is well lit and in the foreground.
This conveys to the viewer, that the farmer is of the here and now, where as the children are of the past, a distant memory of evacuees at the farm.

The past and present integrate into one image.

By coincidence the BBC at present are showing a six part drama on Sunday evenings called ‘The Village’.

It is the story of a man called ‘Bert’ and his memories of childhood during the war years.

What is fantastic about talking to elderly people is that while their memories of the last few weeks or years can sometimes be very vague and sketchy, when you ask about their childhood, often, their memory is incredibly sharp.

This is something that I am acutely aware of from my experience of dementia clients in the many years of managing their care before I came to university.

What I am interested in, is living memory, a history that isn’t coming from history books but from oral history, from a real person who has lived an ordinary life on the farm.

It is only through taking the time to listen to those experiences and memories, can I hope to convey to the viewer of my images, the narrative of times gone by.

A transition period of the old way of life and the quality of it, to the modern technology of machinery and where time and quantity is of the importance.