The Collected Works

This old picture is not exactly from nowhere, but from an album of photographs taken in India in the 1930s. What stories could be told by these nine men?

The album belonged to my wife’s Uncle Jim, who served in the British Army in India in the 1930s. As far as I can make out, however, Jim was not one of the nine men featured in the photograph. I am not sure when the photograph was taken, nor can I explain why at least two of the company look decidedly worse for wear. At their best, photographs can be objects in themselves, without the need for a backstory or a list of dramatic personae. This, I like to think, is one such photograph.

• 

• 

• 

Three photographs from an album of photos and postcards from India in the 1930s. They come from a family album which was put together by my wife’s uncle, Jim Carthew, and has been kindly lent to me by his granddaughter. I am slowly working my way through the album, scanning the photographs as I go. The three today must have been taken in that part of India or Afghanistan where Uncle Jim was stationed when he was a soldier in the 1930s. From the rather indistinct captions, the first one is a photograph of a tea server, the second is a dancing girl and the third is the local postman. More from the same album will undoubtedly follow.