Sandra Ashenford reflects on the ups and downs of her week

DAUGHTER number one has been comparing photographs of her new baby daughter Willow with pictures of her son Jenson, now aged three, when he was the same age.

They look so incredibly similar that I can’t tell them apart in the pictures. Daughter number four has found this fascinating, and has been rooting through all of our family photos to see how alike she and her sisters were as babies.

It has become something of a game, with her constantly thrusting photographs under my nose and demanding: “Which one of us is this?”

Sometimes I can tell, and sometimes I can’t. Daughter number two is relatively easy to pick out as she has dark hair and the other three are fair-haired, but other than that they all had a very strong family resemblance as babies.

It would have been sensible to write some details on the back of each photograph at the time they were printed but, of course, you think you will never forget.

At least we have real photographs, hundreds and hundreds of them, unlike many people today whose precious memories are all stored electronically.

I have plenty of those too but as a historian who works with tangible objects, I know the value of a box of pictures in terms of generating any discussions about the past. You don’t even need to know the people in them – changing fashions, hairstyles and places all provoke conversation. As I was returning pictures to the big wooden chest where they live after daughter number four’s latest foray into our family history, I couldn’t help but pause here and there as the photos brought memories flooding back.

It was like an episode of This Is Your Life, with apologies to readers too young to remember that show. Most poignant of all were the people who were no longer with us, pictured with smiles and, like all of us, with no idea of what the future would have in store. Amongst a batch of very early pictures, I found this one of me and my sister Elaine. I think I must have been about seven, and she would have been about nine or 10. Sadly she passed away just before her 40th birthday.