ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 222

So. I’m looking through my stuff trying to find something for today’s photo; I find an envelope containing the letters I wrote to my Grandmother in England (she kept them all and after she died someone had found them and gave them to me). There is a thank you letter I wrote in December 1978 thanking her for the oatcakes (I mention that we had already eaten two boxes so I wonder how many boxes we received that Christmas) and “The Game of Goose” (I don’t know what that was) and I tell her that I received a Kodak Instamatic camera from my parents and had already developed a roll of film and that “I made wonderful photographs” (that’s a bit conceited). She also photocopies of three newspaper articles: one from the Journal de Genève “Un Labour photo pour la Bosnie” and these two in the photo.
I had been a few months in Gašinci and realised that the camp really needed a passport photography set up so I first went to Geneva and raised money to buy an enlarger, a couple of cameras and all the bits and bobs and paper and chemicals and film you need to set up a DIY lab. Then I went back to Montolieu were I used to have a restaurant and when we were there we decided to raise money to buy a car which we would use to bring the photographic equipment to the camp and then donate the car to Suncokret which was the NGO I was volunteering for.
There were two restaurants in Montolieu, Le Cafe du Livre which was us and a proper restaurant which was run by Bernard Magos and his wife. We got on well and we were not competing with each other as there were no clients most of the time and then on weekends there were more clients than both the restaurants could cater for.
Anyway, from reading the articles, I gather that a meals and wine tasting event was organised at Bernard’s restaurant and all the proceeds would go to buying the car. Of course I remembered them but I had completely forgotten their names (although I remember their dog was called Lenin) and didn’t think I would ever be in touch with them again. But the article says this name and I found him on Facebook and made a friends request …

I AM STILL ALIVE

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