On every 1950s high street you could see them
Spruced up, suited and booted
Sickly smile in place
Chat up lines at the ready
to encourage weary faces to “smile for the birdie”.
Box brownie in one hand
Flash gun in the other
Grabbing unsuspecting passers-by
Day trippers with their ice cream cones,
Factory girls on their lunch break
Shoppers for the New Look
Passing out their business cards
“Just come and see,
No obligation,
Your own photograph”
Most of these now long lost
Cast aside in boxes
Consigned to attics
Covered in cobwebs
Nibbled at by mice
Rotted by damp
Forgotten in house moves
These faded black and whites
Are found generations later
By new occupants
Converting attics for future children
For whom their faces, their streets, their clothing hold no familiarity
in a world where Instagram has replaced Kodachrome
© Sheila Ash 2nd October 2016
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