Snapshot: My dad, jazz man and much more
Other readers' snapshots may bring back memories of time spent with loved ones, or show an unexpected side to people they thought they knew intimately. But snapshots are all I have of my late father; there are no memories, no intimate knowledge, no time together. Only these photographic records of a few random moments in a life history I never got to share. They are the most valuable possessions I have, because without them, I'd have nothing of my father.
Back row, fourth trumpeter from the right, that's my dad, Frank West. The photograph was printed on a postcard by O'Neil's Photographs of Wisconsin, US, but was probably taken in Montreal where Frank played in jazz bands through the 1940s, 50s and early 60s. I believe the photo to be of the Maynard Ferguson band with Ferguson himself on the left of the picture, sitting behind the microphone.
I'd love to be able to say I hung out with Ferguson as a child, or that my life was scored by Oscar Peterson, but sadly this photograph is the closest I came to my father's musical life. My parents separated when I was a baby, and my older sister and I were brought to the UK by our English mother in 1963. Our father died within a few years, and he was rarely spoken of in our family.
I have tried to piece together his life history from the few nuggets of information I wormed out of family and friends over the years, and the photographs that came to light when my mother passed away. Eventually, I tracked down my father's family in Canada, who filled in many of the gaps and added to my photographic collection – with pictures of not just my father, but my entire family.
Now, at long last, I feel I know something of my father, his family and his life. I look at the photographs and I can see the man he was: musician, teacher, husband, father, son, brother and friend. The pictures of my parents together, looking happy, proud and suited to each other, are among my favourites, as are those of my father holding me or playing with my sister.
So my snapshots don't resurrect memories, they are substitutes for memories I don't have, and are now firmly planted on what was once a piece of wasteland within my mind. Who knows, when I'm old and grey, and the boundaries of reality have blurred, they may have taken such deep root that I'll believe they are real after all. What a comfort that could be in my old age.
Some people say they don't need photographs to remember their loved ones by because their faces are etched indelibly on their memories, and there's a great deal of truth in that. But for those of us who don't have the benefit of our own mental snapshots, photographs can be all we have of the past. Jo West
Playlist: Northern soul, my life's soundtrack
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson
"Your love, liftin' me higher/Than I've ever been lifted before/So keep it up, quench my desire/And I'll be at your side forever more"
As a teenager, my dad used to put on his dancing shoes, ram a fistful of talc into his pocket and go dancing to northern soul at the Wigan Casino. He never grew out of it, so rousing horns and euphoric soul became part of the soundtrack of my childhood.
But the track that has always meant the most to me is Jackie Wilson's (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher. I remember coming home from school one Valentine's Day, and my dad had managed to find a card for my mum with a CD single of the track attached. He put it on full blast, singing along to the wonderfully cheesy lyrics. He was so pleased with himself.
In later years, family barbecues would always finish with the stereo being cranked up in the kitchen, and me, my auntie and uncle and my mum and dad would throw ourselves around, shouting out the lyrics.
After my dad died, when I was 20, the song became more important to me than ever. I'd put it on when I wanted cheering up, or sometimes when I was feeling on top of the world.
Even now, well past the age that my dad's dancing days were over when he was busy looking after a baby me, I sometimes go to a northern soul night in London, and it is always one of my requests. The DJ normally indulges me, and I shut my eyes and sing the words: "And now with my loving arms around you/Honey, I can stand up and face the world." Alexandra Topping
We love to eat: Bastible spelt soda bread
Ingredients
1lb spelt flour (white, wholegrain or a mixture)
1 tsp salt
1 heaped tsp of bicarbonate of soda
14 fluid ounces of buttermilk
A little extra flour for kneading
Combine all the dry ingredients and sieve into a large bowl. Make a hole and add the buttermilk. Bring the mixture together and tip on to a floured surface. Knead the dough until it forms a smooth, round ball. Heat the oven to 200C. Sprinkle a light dusting of flour in the base of a deep cast-iron pot. Put in the dough. Cut a deep cross on the top for decoration. Put the lid on and bake for about 50 minutes. You could also bake it in an ordinary loaf tin.
When it's done, tip it out and wrap it in a tea towel until cool. Eat with butter and perhaps jam, along with pots of tea, a fire and some good yarns.
Soda bread was a key feature of my mother's baking repertoire, along with scones and apple tarts. With six children in the house, it never lasted long. In fact, the reputation of her baking grew to legendary proportions, and the bread would disappear along with pots and pots of tea.
Mam would always say that the taste of the bread was even better when it was baked in a bastible pot, which would have been common when she was growing up. These are three-legged cast-iron pots, with a lid and sometimes a chain so that they could be hung over an open fire or rested on the coals. Traditionally, the pot was put on the fire with some of the hot turf sods placed on the lid, while the bread baked – but my mother did her baking in a gas oven.
I've dabbled in making soda bread over the years, but never felt I quite got the knack to pull off as tasty a loaf as my mother. No doubt it is always hampered by the fact that it is not made by her hands. Added to that, I've now changed to baking with spelt flour.
I have now hit on the modern alternative to a bastible pot, which is a deep, cast-iron casserole pot with a lid, bought for me by my partner, who has heard the bastible story many times. I put the dough in and 50 minutes later, out comes the most delicious, nutty, tasty loaf of bread.
Mam died more than three years ago, aged 90, so she never got to taste my best soda bread. Every time I bake it, I think of her and I'm pretty sure she would enjoy it. So, here's to you, Mam. Geraldine McCarthy
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