I've been lying to myself

Back in May 2004, I took a bit of a long-cut home on a Friday afternoon after I'd been somewhere for work.

I can't remember where I'd been but the I do recall the goal of the diversion was to check out Pig Saddle Road in the Malvern Hills which by reputation was a goat track to which I'm kinda partial.

Back before the age of phones with decent cameras I almost always had a camera with me and in this case I had a Canon Powershot G5 along for the ride.

As well as winding shingle roads I find I'm attracted to historic buildings so I stopped at the Russel's flat school and took this photo:

I'm not sure when my memory failed me but how I took that photo is not the story I've been telling myself for at least the last 15 years.

I thought I somehow held the camera up against a window on the opposite side or the room, wrapped a sweatshirt around the back of the camera to remove the reflections and popped off a few photos.

The school hall photo was used for a couple of local photo competitions and there was a printed copy above my desk for a while. I really love the light and mood captured on that Friday afternoon.

The lie was exposed in August this year when I went for a run on the bike and found myself again at Russells Flat school. I was genuinely surprised to find that there are no windows on the south end of the hall. I had to be in the building to take that photo 22 years ago.

When I got home I even found some other photos I'd taken that day which confirmed for sure that the wall of a 100+ year old building had not magically changed.

How is it that I was so certain of the fictional version of the story I had locked to that image?

Maybe someone asked me how I took took the photo and I preferred to avoid saying I'd snuck into the building and that's where it started?

The back door into the kitchen wasn't locked in 2026 and I'm going to assume that's how I entered the building 22 years ago as well.

The erroneous clarity of my memory isn't limited to just the hall though.

In my mind getting to Russel's flat was a bit of a journey in itself, climbing up in to Russells flat from Springfield over a winding road.

The reality without the distortion of time is that it's, well, flat from the West Coast highway to well past the school ground before you hit Pig Saddle Road.

It's not so curious that I didn't remember the detail of one photo, it's that I'm now not sure about the tenuous threads which build a tapestry from all the other photos I've taken over the years.

Perhaps best I continue to lie to myself, the stories are probably better that way.

Some of the photos from afternoon road trip below, click for better view etc.