NB for our security, unless you are designated a friend, you will not see all our 70k plus images, and videos, but please feel free to ask.

I was born in Sedgley, which was then part of Staffordshire, as indeed were Wolverhampton, Walsall, Willenhall, West Bromwich and all the rest of the Black Country towns.

Lived primarily in Portobello, and later on the Lucknow estate with my parents, but every so often when money was tight, sadly all too often, I was despatched to the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire to live with my widowed paternal grandfather.

After school, I started full-time employment as a white collar worker in insurance, (yawn), but becoming bored with that adopted a more nomadic lifestyle, joined the Army, then working in the Middle East, North East Africa, and long distance lorry driving all over the UK etc.

Finally, after years of being foot loose and fancy-free I returned to being a white collar worker, but this time in logistics management where I met my wife. Well re-met actually, if there is such an expression, for we grew up in the same slums of Portobello in Staffordshire, her best friends brother was my best friend, we went to the same chapel, Sunday school, primary, and senior school, and eventually she managed to make an honest man of me.

We settled down in Willenhall (Humpshire) for five years, and then in Essington, Staffs, for thirteen years, at which point we decided to spend the 21st century away from the bustle and commotion of the Black Country, and took a bit of a flyer to move to the forest of my childhood in December 1999.

Joined Flickr in 2007 following the purchase of a cheap Nokia phone off the internet, for we discovered it had a camera too, and my word did I ever put that Nokia to work, and thus my interest in photography was kindled.

At this point I also began uploading our collection of family photo's just in case any of our ever diminishing relations wished to see them.

However, rather unexpectedly I also found it being used by very distant members of both our families, plus interested strangers, some who have become firm friends, which has been wonderful.

The images are a record of both our families going back to the first photo in 1878, plus photo's of odds and ends handed down, in case the original item is lost or destroyed, as often happens.

Following a few of years of happy snapping with the Nokia, our incredibly kind Flickr friends Wadey, and his lovely wife Lynn, most generously gave us their 'old' Nikon pocket camera, after they had a new one for Christmas (2010).

So now the workman could no longer blame his camera/phone, not that he ever did actually, and to be fair if the Nokia never took another photograph, which is unlikely, we have had our moneys worth out of it, but the splendid Nikon was a real eye-opener into the world of photography.

So much so that in June 2012, and after much debate and pondering, we invested in a Fujifilm S 4200 and were very pleased with its zoom, x24 and the super macro, altogether a fine camera, although the video was not very good.

Sadly in early 2015 I dropped said camera from about 7 feet onto the very unforgiving ceramic tiled floor in our kitchen, not good!

I hasten to add it was not intentional, but due to my dominant hand having a spasm, a legacy of an industrial accident when my hand was crushed under a ton of cardboard which caused my enforced retirement at 62.

However, my wife bought me a new camera for my birthday, and I became the proud owner of a Canon Powershot SX60 HS, all I needed to do was read and understand the 300-page manual lol

I never actually got round to doing that, as the shutter button and innards sprang out on the 7th December 2021, and are forever lost in a field north of our hamlet in France, so one scrapped camera.

As my wife, and a good friend commented, ''you wore out the camera mate'', well perhaps I did, but despite this we bought another Canon, the later version, the Powershot SX70 HS, and so far the button seems fine...

As with all grand designs that are impulsive, the idea of building up a collection of our family images is constantly being modified with changing moods and happenings.

All I can say is that at present we are also using it as a diary of our life, firstly in the beautiful Royal Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire where we used to live until we had itchy feet, again, and decided to move to France.

Following the sale of our lovely cottage in the Dean, we left England in June 2013, and began our search in the Limousin for our new home, which we found in the Haute-Vienne department of that Region, and have very happily settled into the French way of life.

Lord knows what direction the ever-increasing collection of photo's will be taking next, especially with so many incredibly beautiful scenes and vistas to capture in La Belle France, I believe the technical term is "developing organically", yeah right!

So if you're interested then please enjoy, but do remember it is a family affair, please don't be that bloke, you know the one I mean!

Thanks.

Oh, one last thing, whilst I am under no illusion as to the level of my photographic skills, if you did mark one of my photographs as a favourite it would be very nice if you made a comment too!