My mother went to a professional photographer, Julia Bennett Studios in Oxford Street, to have this portrait taken. I presume it was for a passport. I have been trying to work out when it was taken, because she never actually looked like that. The dress is polyester, so it must have been taken in the very early 60s. She must be about 35. The pearls I still have.

I often look at this photo and it always seems so wrong to me. The photo itself. Not looking at it. It’s her hair, I think. it’s not symmetrical. Her hair was always tidy- did she have shares in Elnett? and here it is bushier on one side than on the other. Trivial, I know. But thirteen years on I still miss her immensely. The eleventh of September has very different connotations for me than for the rest of the world, I’m afraid.