History repeats... etc.

I've been putting rugs and carpets out in the sun to dispel the perennial mustiness they acquire in our normally damp climate.

I took this shot of Fred and Huw because they seemed so relaxed stretched out together. Looking at it later I realised they were lying on the 'tolly-up rug'* as it was always referred to in my childhood. It had belonged to my father when he was sent from abroad to a posh public school to take advantage of the English education thought fitting for a young gentleman of independent means. I think he was 14 at the time which dates this rug to 1906.

A few years later and Europe became a very different sort of place. My father's education did not bring him wealth and influence but he always loved cats and the feel of sun on his skin. This image could easily be of him (even more so in b&w.)

“The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence” T.S. Eliot



* To tolly up: 'To work by candle light after the extinction of other lights.' Harrow School, 1889
The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang