Family life: My parents in a South African mine; She Loves You by the Beatles; and my grandmother’s Krautsalat

This photograph is one of many that my father took on the trip of a lifetime to South Africa to visit his brother and& family. As a child, the youngest of& three, I had no memories of Uncle Peter, my father’s younger brother, and found it hard to believe that he existed, let alone that he had children – my cousins – who shared a surname with us. All those miles away. By the time Mum and Dad made the trip over to Johannesburg in 1980, I was a student at Thames Polytechnic and so was able to see them off at the airport – as well as welcome them back on their return a& month later.