The McMahons, On Home Turf

This photograph has been scanned from a family album. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first shot of us as a family unit, taken in the huge garden of our home, 3 Dumayne Avenue in Calcutta. That's Dad on the left, me as a two-month-old infant in the gentle arms of Keith (15 years old) with my Mum beside us and Uncle Les to her side. Standing in front are Mike (left, 12) and Brian (10). When I was born on 27 October 1956, my brothers were all at boarding school in Sherwood College, Naini Tal.

The hand-written caption for the picture just says ``Dave, 2 months'' so it would have been very close to Christmas Day, 1956. It was definitely not Christmas itself, or else the family would have been in suits. Strangely enough, I know of only one other picture taken with all four of us brothers and our parents - and I'm trying to track it down.

Now have a look at the shot below. It is actually a cropped version of the same photograph, and I've used digital imaging technology to sharpen the image. Compare the two and you'll see a huge difference in the sharpness and clarity. We'll save this one for posterity.

In October 2003, I took my own family back to India on holiday and we had our photograph taken in almost the same spot. Our mother's ashes are buried near the base of a huge Bengal mast tree, about ten metres from where this picture was taken. As an orphan who was brought up by English nuns in the Convent of St Mary the Virgin in Poona (now Pune, western India) our

mother's only home was the school where she lived. But 3 Dumayne Avenue, where this picture was taken, was the home where she raised us, her four boys. It was only fitting that her remains were reverently buried here, in the garden she loved so dearly.