photos

Postcards to Grandma

The postcards pictured below, among others, were given to me by my grandmother, pre-stamped, when I started university in September 1999, to encourage me to let me know how I was getting along. Originally privately posted to my gran, I posted pictures on them online elsewhere in 2006, having recovered them from her house after her death. The place they were posted is long-gone, so on 25 May 2019 I retroactively posted them here, back-dated to their original authorship.

Transcription:

Gran,

Hi! I didn’t know that you didn’t have my address down here in Wales until my mum sent me an e-mail and told me, so I thought I’d send you a card and tell you what it is, so that when the money runs out and I end up in the eating-cold-baked-beans-straight-from-the-tin stage, I can phone you and you can send a food parcel… Only kidding. Course is great; freedom is better; ladies are gorgeous. Lovely place here.

All my love, Dan

Transcription:

Gran,

No money. No time. Suicidally depressed. Knife-wound isn’t healing…

Only joking! Having a great time, really! All the fun of the fair! Aberystwyth remains typically rainy, but spirits are high and beer prices are low, so that doesn’t matter!

Having a Christmas Dinner with the Computer Society on Wednesday, and coming back to Preston on Saturday (18th Dec). Been a busy week, between Final Deadlines, Getting Stood Up, Living A Party Life and Sleeping. Think I’ll have a long lie-in, tomorrow, and Honey Loops for breakfast! Yeh!

Fond regards; Dan

Aberystwyth Admission

This photo was originally published to a closed group and republished to this blog on 25 May 2019.

Swimathon 1999

This image was shared here in hindsight, on 25 May 2019.

Avatar Diary – Birthday Aftermath

These photos, originally published in the Avatar Diary during January 1999, were recovered and republished here on 25 May 2019 on a post dated the day they were taken, 9 January 1999 – the day after my 18th birthday party. They were originally accompanied by a blog post mocking everybody who’d participated in (drunken) silliness the night before. In particular, I laid-into Gary and Faye, who ended up sharing a bed on the night, but in actuality I was hiding the fact that I was heartbroken: at the time, I had an intense infatuation with Faye which wouldn’t completely abate until a year or so later.

Mother’s Day

This image was shared here in hindsight, on 25 May 2019. I didn’t actually start blogging until around August 1998. I’m the guy in the top right, in the Independence Day t-shirt. Anticlockwise from me are my cousins Stephen and Thomas, my Uncle Tom (my mother’s brother), my sister Becky, my Auntie Anne, my sister Sarah, my maternal grandmother, and a woman – whose name I forget – that one of my cousins was dating at the time.

“Daniel nearly 22 months”

This photo, taken 2 October 1982 and showing me at just 22 months old, might be the oldest picture of myself that I own on which I can pin a specific date. (Obviously) I didn’t start blogging until much later: my first real “blog” began in late 1998; this photo was posted here retroactively on 25 May 2019.