Thursday, May 14, 2015

Was That Me 33 Years Ago?

I've never been much of a photographer. My friend S has made about 40 of those photo books of her son's life and he's only four and a half. I've still to compile our first photo book and DD is six and a half. So you'll not be surprised to hear that my album from my gap year 33 years ago is an exercise book with a few photos, postcards of the kibbutz we lived on (Sde Eliahu if anyone who doesn't know is interested) and lots of writing. A bit like my blog really.

There was a Swiss guy with us, Alex Avidan, now Dr Avidan in Jerusalem, who was and still is an avid photographer. A few years ago we held a reunion of sorts and Alex compiled a powerpoint presentation of all his 344 photographs from our year together. It was set to all the songs we used to sing and had us exclaiming, "who are those kids?!"

Yesterday he posted a link to his photos on facebook after another friend posted a selfie wearing our beloved sweatshirt that we designed ourselves. Actually Alex reminded us that he designed the sweatshirt aswell. LOL, had I realised back then that he was such a high achiever I would have tried harder to attract his attention.

So here are a few photos of me among Alex's gallery. It was 1981-1982. We were living as farmers on a kibbutz on the Jordanian border. We travelled the country in the back of an old Leyland lorry. We sang and danced a lot. We thought this was life. Who knew?

Me aged 19, notice the farmer's tan

We loved to sing and perform

This was my favourite seat on the Leyland

A country girl at heart?

All photos by Dr Alexander Avidan.


12 comments:

  1. That's just how I remember you! Lovely to see a photo of Judy playing the guitar as well

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  2. These are lovely. Your daughter looks a lot like you.

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  3. Thank you, she does look like me. I look att hese photos now and also think they are lovely. But why didn't I appreciate that I looked lovely at the time? That is the big question.

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  4. Wow! What a gorgeous top picture! I have too few of me, which is probably not a bad thing, as I hate any photographs of me, but I am concious that my two don't have that many of me as they are growing up as I am the one that takes all the photos! :) x

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    1. Thank you. As a single mother, I also don't have many photos of DD and me together. And the ones that I do have I mostly hate. I always say the camera hates me but maybe it's me who hates how round my face has become.

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  5. Wow, what a fabulous collection of photos to have! I particularly like the first one of you. Gorgeous. And a woman after my own heart with your singing and performing :-) xx

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    1. We sang all the time. It was like living a year in a musical.

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  6. A wonderful collections of memories: I love the last one, so poignant x

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  7. What a lovely blast from the past for you to see them all again. It never fails to amaze me looking back how things change over the years. Great photos, and you can really see the resemblance between you and DD.

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    1. Thanks. I'm also amazed to see that I have actually aged since being a young adult. I never saw it coming.

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