WordSmith: A Cosmic Procession
I was actually looking for a Christmas jumper that I knew was lurking somewhere at the bottom of a drawer. During my search, I became distracted by a cardboard envelope at the bottom of another drawer. Curious as to what was inside, I pulled it out and sat down.
Inside were some old internet printouts containing historical information about St Patrick’s College, Cavan. There were also a few black-and-white photographs, one of which caught my eye. It was a photo of the Corpus Christi procession of St Pat’s students in choral dress, dated 1947. One particular lad held my attention. He was second from the front, staring directly at the camera. I recognised him. After a few moments, it dawned on me who he was. It was me!
I put the photograph down, stood up and put the kettle on. Armed with a cup of strong black coffee, I settled back on the couch, picked up the photograph again and stared at it. There was no mistaking it. He was absolutely me. “Is this a Photoshop job?” I asked myself. Had someone somehow managed to photoshop an old photograph of me into the procession?
Of course the lad isn’t me, I wasn’t around in 1947 (at least I don’t think I was). But I was astonished by how much of myself I recognised in someone who had been photographed decades before I was born. I put the photo back in the envelope and proceeded with my day.
But that photo kept niggling at me. It was the lad’s expression. I’d seen it somewhere before. It was as though it had been burned into my brain. And it wasn’t only his physical resemblance to me. No, he felt like me, too.
What was it? I had the photo on my phone, so I took another look. The answer popped into my head. It was his discomfort in front of the camera. I could feel a narrative emerging. And with that thought, another page turned and my sister Maria popped into the plot.
“Cheer up Gerard, you look dead miserable!” she said, before snapping her Kodak Instamatic in my face. It was a Saturday in May. We were in a local park at a community festival, and I was miserable.
That morning, I woke in a state of bliss. A whole day with Maria lay ahead and, I was buzzing. Our morning began with tea and toast while watching Tiswas on the telly. With Tiswas over Maria announced, “Let’s get dressed up. All the trendy ones will be at this today.” Maria had recently had her hair styled into fashionable Farrah-Fawcett-Flicks. To me, she looked like a fourth Charlie’s Angel. I wore my new wide-collared shirt, jumper, with wide flared trousers and, to be fair, I thought I looked fairly decent.
It was Whit-Saturday, an informal community gathering ahead of the more formal Whit-Sunday celebrations, when people turned out in procession wearing their best bib and tucker. We arrived at the park, which was packed with fashionable, flare-flapping peacocks and peahens.
Maria was engulfed by friends, all complimenting her new hairdo, and I lost her in the crowd. When I saw the lads approaching, my heart slumped. They weren’t bad lads; in fact, I got on well with them at school. I just knew they’d spotted a joke, and I was the punchline. Sure enough, one of them delivered: “Ere, Smithy, me granny wants to know where you get your shampoo-and-set done?” With the laugh supplied, they ran off, their glossy feather-cuts flowing on the breeze.
All thoughts of me looking decent dissipated. While my friends sported trendy haircuts that made them look like groovy pop stars, mine made me look like Annie Walker from Coronation Street. There was no doubt about it: I had the same hair as Doris Speed. And it was while coming to terms with this unfortunate reality that Maria, blissfully unaware of what had happened, snapped me with her Kodak Instamatic.
And it was this photograph of me I saw when I looked at the lad in the 1947 image. He had better hair than me, but he shared the same expression I had worn on that Whit-Saturday.
And so began my frantic search for that photograph. Without it, I couldn’t write this column. I’d like to think Maria was guiding me, because it turned up surprisingly quickly. It was tucked away in the back of an album at the top of a drawer. A photo-album carefully curated by my beloved Maria. I’ve still not found that Christmas jumper. Instead, I found two photographs: echoes across time, a cosmic coincidence that made me: stop, think, and smile.