Notes on the Faintest of Memories

There was a storm that night.  We walked slowly and purposefully from our tents in the kind of tightly clustered grouping that only adolescents can pull off inconspicuously. This journey was made through what I see in my memory as an apple orchard - this may be a romantic interpretation on my part, it could just as easily have been somewhere else, but it was outdoors and green and soft underfoot.  I suppose we must have carried our sleeping bags, or perhaps sent out a party of two or three to claim them from the sodden tarpaulins later on in the day.

We came to a building somewhere between a caravan and a shed.  It was not warm inside, but it was dry and musty, a welcome change from the dampness and chill of sleeping outdoors.  There was a battered wooden table where I rested my camera, dirty and yellowing windows and a carpeted surface of some description covering the floor. Kitchen cabinets too, and an out-of-action refrigerator.

In those days, regardless of the location we were placed within, we did the same number of things: card games were played, sleep was caught up on, a mishmash of conversations and laughter was heard.