On a New Collection of Old Things

Or, on how I came to be the owner of a box of vintage faces.

More than a dozen years ago, I lived in the West End of Glasgow. A few streets away from our flat, there was a pretty, half-hidden lane that had a junk shop at the bottom.

It was the kind of junk shop that had treasures piled upon treasures so precariously that you risked a landslide every time you wanted to look at something. It had antique furniture, classic radios, knick knacks, homewares, books. I once bought a set of plastic, 1960s tumblers that I don't have anymore, but often think about.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, there was a barrel-sized receptacle filled with old photographs. I found myself there one Saturday afternoon, flicking through snap after snap of abandoned faces. They were fascinating, but also sad. All these black and white figures who had once been beloved individuals, now orphaned from their names and personalities and priced at 25p per snap.

I wanted to buy them all: to give all these lost faces a home and try and treasure them in a way they had – presumably – once been treasured, before they'd been separated from photo albums and dumped into the barrel. But I didn't have the space or the funds for a whole barrel of photographs, so I left with only one, a posed wedding group on the steps of a church. It was the one that appealed to me the most: the bride looked so very happy.

I say all this, I think, so it will be clear that I have previous for this sort of thing. Because, you see, I've started a new collection, and that collection is old photographs.

This, of course, is a newsletter about writing and inspiration, not vintage photography. Luckily, I can justify both the discussion of the photographs here and starting the collection in the first place under the delightfully vague category of historical inspiration.

You see, sometimes the imaginary worlds inside my head falter and splutter and need a little concrete visual prompting to get going again. Perhaps this is more of an issue if you’re writing historical fiction rather than contemporary fiction: it can be hard to think yourself into a totally different time as well as a different physical space without a little help to ease the journey.

Old photographs are one of my favourite ways to do this. I have a handful of books featuring collected photographs of different towns and cities (mainly put together by local historical societies) and they help me visualise the backdrop for whatever story I'm trying to tell. I also like to look at photographs of people and outfits and contemporary interiors. After spending a great deal of time scrolling image searches and Pinterest, I thought again of that barrel full of old photographs and wondered how easy it might be to gather a physical collection of photographs myself.

Reader, it was very easy. A couple of clicks on Ebay and I found myself presented with a 5kg box of mystery assorted vintage photographs for £30. I did wonder whether this was slightly too odd for an impulse purchase, so I decided to ask my husband what he thought. This was, perhaps, not as restrained as it might sound. If you've ever met my husband, you'll know he is not the sort of person to discourage impulsive whims. Days later, a 5kg box of mystery photographs arrived on the doorstep.

The photographs inside are beautiful and heartwarming and fascinating. There's also something very haunting about them: they are largely posed studio prints, taken to mark a special occasion. The birth of a baby, a marriage, an impending journey or life change. These photographs were displayed on mantlepieces, posted to loved ones, kept reverently folded away. These photographs were once precious possessions of much-loved and talked about individuals, but now, a few generations later, they are a nameless jumble in a box. They are divorced from their own names and stories, and though their faces may well spark something that becomes a new character in a new story, I can't help thinking that's a poor consolation.

Still, I have done my best to give them their due. I've spent very happy hours pouring over them, by myself and with friends and family. We've sorted them into loose time categories, then have housed them in a tiny set of drawers my dad made me just for this purpose.

More to the point for this newsletter, perhaps, I've already sifted through my new (old) collection with more fictional motivations in mind. I've selected a handful of long-ago people that echo something of the way the characters from my current WIP look in my mind. I've arranged them around my desk in a fashion that is probably not dissimilar from the way they might once have been propped on a mantlepiece.

This might just be a simple sleight of hand and reworking of history, but it feels instead like a sliver of storytelling magic. From the mystery box of old photographs, my characters have appeared in antique photographic proof.

And isn't making your characters real to yourself half the battle of making them real to everyone else?