A glimpse into a life long gone

Last week, two items appeared out of the blue while doing a rare spot of cleaning, which transported us back through the years like a home-made time machine.

First up was an item that we’d totally forgotten about - daughter #2’s pre-school diary, filled out every day by her teacher to let us know what our then-three-year-old had been doing all day.

And on the first page, there she was. A big photograph of daughter #2 in glorious technicolor, as she was in 2005. To be honest, she hasn’t changed all that much, apart from back then she was 2ft 6in and now, four months away from her 17th birthday, she’s 5ft 11in.

Anyone who has ever set foot in a pre-school knows it is like herding cats. The noise, the smells, the tantrums and the parents praying that they get a smooth drop-off without any drama so they can get to work on time for once.

So thank you to the teacher who somehow found time through all the chaos to write that daughter #2 loved playing in the sand pit, painting pictures and running around in the fresh air with her friends, some of whom by now will have passed their driving tests and are also eligible to vote.

As if that solid gold nugget wasn’t enough, a long-forgotten file of old press cuttings and photographs from yours truly’s days as a cub reporter on a great daily newspaper back in the early 1990s turned up too.

Amongst it was a black and white photograph of the paper’s football team, fresh from giving our local rivals a beating, with 11 grinning young men in their prime staring down the lens.

Back then local papers had loads of staff to pick a team from - compositors, printers, sub-editors, reporters and each had its own editor.

And judging by some of the suspiciously polished talent, it made you wonder if some staff were hired by football-mad senior managers for their ability on the pitch, not their ability to write clear, concise court copy.

But there we were, half a lifetime ago, with the ball, and the world, at our feet.