Snapshot: My dad when he used to blow his trumpet

My father was a reserved man, who brought us up strictly and was never one to show his feelings or emotion. His hobbies, such as I remember them, were gardening and listening to jazz records.

Years ago, when I came across this photograph of him and asked him about it, he brushed aside my curiosity and refused to say more than that some friends and himself had played together in a small band for a while. Though disappointed at his response, I accepted what he said, got on with life and forgot all about it.

Now, as I sort through my parents’ old photo albums, I find the photo again. It starts me thinking and I try to imagine my father’s life at that time and how it relates to the man I knew as I grew up.

On a different page in the album there are two other photos, one each of friends Sidney and Frank playing drums and piano. The caption reads: “At the Sports Field 1937-1939.” The Union Jack backdrop is identical to that in my father’s photo so presumably they were taken on the same occasion. My father would have been 20 years old in 1937; he and my mother met the following year.

The page containing this photograph of the trumpet player is titled “Happy Moments, 18-21 years”. Other photos on the same page are of my father playing football, bowls and driving his sports car, “La Fafala”.

These must indeed have been very happy times. My father and his friends, including my mother and the other men’s girlfriends, were young and had good jobs with Post Office Telecommunications. They enjoyed outings and holidays and times spent socialising at the sports field and club.

Did these young people have any idea just how much things were to change, as they enjoyed life immediately before the outbreak of war?

But what I really want to know is, what happened to the trumpet, Dad, and why did you never play it for us?

Valerie Hopgood

Playlist: Trying to be cooler for my older sister

Runaway Train by Soul Asylum

“Call you up in the middle of the night / like a firefly without a light”

Growing up, while my older sister echoed my father’s taste in music and enjoyed bands like the Beatles and other bands from the 60s, I was an avid tween fan of Kylie and Jason around the Neighbours wedding era. Once my sister had finally persuaded me that my taste in music was unacceptable – by which stage she had moved on to spending much of her spare time practising ceilidh music on her violin, which is not the sweetest of sounds, I might point out – I tried to adopt what I thought of at the time as a cooler image.

In my new cool guise, I aimed to be alternative/grunge and dutifully listened to many bands whose music I didn’t really understand or relate to. My father would listen to specific songs I liked in an effort to understand my musical taste, but my sister usually referred to it all as “unpleasant noise”. My bands of choice were Hole, Throwing Muses, Huggy Bear or Sonic Youth, although I was quickly seduced by Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana, as I found them considerably easier on the ear and liked their T-shirts.

I first heard Soul Asylum’s Runaway Train on the radio, while working as a chambermaid – Dave Pirner’s melodic despairing tones made me fall instantly in love with him: here was a man who had written a beautiful depiction of my very teenage spiralling emotions and therefore understood me.

I saved up quickly to first buy the album, and shortly after to pay for the concert ticket to see Soul Asylum play at Barrowlands in Glasgow, in 1994 when I was 15. My friend and I caught the coach to the gig from outside the Playhouse in Edinburgh, and the driver played the film Point Break on a tiny screen at the front. I think I enjoyed the film nearly as much as the gig, although the screams of ecstasy when Dave Pirner came on stage would give the lie to that theory.

My musical taste has evolved a lot since then and my sister and I even listen to some of the same artists now – though not many.

Sarah Neary

We love to eat: Mashed cherry tomato pasta sauce

Ingredients

1 onion
5 cloves of finely chopped garlic
A punnet of cherry tomatoes
A splash of white wine

Chop the onion and garlic finely and fry in a little olive oil. I use a frying pan so it cooks super fast. Add the cherry tomatoes in whole, they will soften but you can help it along by mashing them with a wooden spoon. Then add a glug of white wine, seasoning and stir for about 10 minutes. My photograph, above, shows how it looks in the pan.

The beauty of this sauce is that you can cook it while your pasta is boiling. I came up with it when looking after my girlfriend’s younger siblings. They named it mashed tomato pasta and now they request it every time we go round to babysit. They like to do the mashing while I take care of draining the spaghetti. It’s fun looking after them as we are all keen foodies, me and my girlfriend and her siblings aged four, seven and nine. I will be surprised if at least one of them doesn’t grow up to be a chef. 

The youngest has a passion for yabbies, or crayfish, and for his fourth birthday he had a yabbying party with all his friends. In fact, Lucas often points out that the sauce is good but could be improved with crayfish. He would eat them every meal if it were up to him. 

So, as an optional extra you could add some freshly caught crayfish to the sauce. For me, though, I love it as it is, simple and cooked with family.

Jack Lattimer

We’d love to hear your stories

We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@theguardian.com. Please include your address and phone number