Topic: Favourite Photo.

This is the only photo I have of my Grandfather Alex Johnston (1868-1952), indeed the only known photo of him at all. A very private man, he reluctantly succumbed to the pleas of his granddaughter when I was about 10 and armed with my first camera, a Baby Brownie box camera with a very simple shutter mechanism. Also in the photo are my father and brother – and again, this is the only photo of all three of them together, so doubly precious.

Granddad was an extraordinary man. Born in Tasmania, Australia to immigrant Scots, he travelled extensively when young, making several trips to to the Far East and Japan in between working as a newspaper reporter on the Western Australian goldfields and in Melbourne, painting exquisite watercolours and playing the violin “like a young Joachim” according to a tiny newspaper cutting which I miraculously discovered concealed between the pages of one of his books. (No, NOT Joaquin Phoenix! The name, a Spanish evolution of a Hebrew name, means ‘lifted by God/Yaweh’ with connotations of divine favour, strength and stability; in 1899 the reference was probably to Joaquin Rodrigo, a Spanish composer and pianist.)

My father in contrast was a quiet man who had no desire to travel and was content to spend long summers on the beach with his children. Like his father he did however have an enquiring mind and was a wonderful life teacher.

My brother was different again – a gregarious man who enjoyed talking about himself! Not interested in journalism or anything resembling it, not an artist, not very musical ….