In the past 65 years I have taken tens of thousands of photos. Indeed it may well be hundreds of thousands of photos and many have been discarded over the years but surprisingly I still have the first photo I took when I acquired my first camera in 1960. Back then I did a paperound, getting out of bed at an obscene early hour, often in the wet and cold -it was England -to earn money to buy that camera. A paperound involved carrying a heavy bag of newspapers round local streets delivering the right papers to the right houses. In those days there were quite a few different daily papers and weekly magazines and all hell broke loose if I inadvertantly posted the salacious and titillating News of the World through Mr Blunt's letterbox when he and his good lady wife, the rector's sister, were looking forward to some serious reading in the Sunday Times.
The best part of the round was at Xmas when I collected tips. Most householders were generous and for the few scrooges it was soon payback time when, quite inadvertantly, their papers, somehow, were left hanging half out of their letterboxes on a very wet morning. How unfortunate. Instant papier mache.
The camera I purchased with that hard earned cash was a 35mm Halina 35X. It looked somewhat like a Leica rangefinder and it even had a red dot on the front. It said it was made in Hong Kong but it was most likely made in China. The reason for the labelling was that Hong Kong was still a British colony then and so imports from there attracted a lower rate of duty. Clever people these Chinese.
I had wanted to buy an Agfa Sillete or a very nice German camera called an AretteA but both were out of my price range and I had to buy a lightmeter as well as the camera. So instead, I reluctantly opted for the newly released Halina and to my surprise it was surprisingly good for its time and price. I have read that the lens glass was made by Pilkington in the UK but who knows? Sounds unlikely to me.
I used the Halina for about 4 years and then sold it to a friend and used the proceeds to buy an East German Exa but that's another story.
I know it is the first photo because there is
some orange light seepage on the edge of the frame. The reason for this is that my parents gave me a present of a cassette of Kodachrome which cost very serious money and I was
very anxious to squeeze as many shots as possible onto the film. I could
not wait to try the camera and what better location than my home?
The house looks so prim and neat in the photo.
Below it, through the wonders of Google Streetview, is it as it looks when the Google man drove past in recent times. The house has been extended. The front
garden is a parking space. It looks sad.
I am glad I have kept that first photo. When I was in the UK last year I did consider taking a train to Ewell West station to take a look at the house where I spent most of my childhood. I'm now glad I didn't. I would have been very disappointed.
"The caravan moves on"
