Flora & Kerry Wright - 1954

Flora & Kerry Wright

1954

This is my favourite photo of Mum and me together. It's another photo that I can remember being taken, even though I was only 4 at the time. My mother, Emily Flora Wright (known as Flora) nee Glover, was then 43. It was taken at the home of friends of my parents who lived at Manly Vale in Sydney, not far from where we lived at Narrabeen. Their surname was Susans. I can't remember their first names. I have a distant, peripheral recollection that they were a good deal older than Mum and Dad. My parents seem to have parted company from them not long after this photo was taken and I have no memory of ever seeing them again, even though their names were sometimes fondly raised in conversation. 

On the day this photo was taken, I remember we had afternoon tea with Mr & Mrs Susans in their heavily draped, dimly lit  home. Late in the afternoon, someone suggested photos be taken and we went outside to the western side of their house, where this photo was taken. The setting sun was low on the horizon, shining directly into our eyes, causing us to squint. I can still remember being unhappy about having to look into the glare of the setting sun, while Mr Susans took the photo. I must have made my displeasure known to Mum, because she is holding my hand in an endeavour to have me wave cheerily at the photographer. 

This photo remains my most loved and cherished image of Mum and me together. Nearly 40 years after it was taken, on Mum's 80th birthday in July 1991, a similar photo was taken of us together. In that photo, our roles had been reversed and I was the one positioned protectively behind my mother. She was terminally ill with inoperable cancer at that time and passed away shortly after the photo was taken. I will post that 1991 photo here in due course.