Cabra History.Com

Isn’t it a funny old world all the same? A lady contacted me on Facebook and offered me an old camera that had once belonged to her recently deceased mother. It’s an old Box Camera from the 1940’s period and made in France of all places. The story went that her mother once opened up the camera and discovered some film still inside. She took it to a chemist shop and had it developed. The photographs had been taken at a wedding twenty years previous. ‘Well now…’ I says to meself  ‘…there’s a nice little story if I ever heard one’. So off I headed with the Box Camera under the arm.

Later that same evening I decided to have a closer inspection of the camera. When I opened it up what do you think I saw inside? That’s right, a roll of film waiting to be removed and developed. So off I went the next day and left it into a camera shop. Well you want to see the look on your man’s face behind the counter when I showed him the film. ‘That’s not digital’ he says looking a bit gobsmacked. I looked at him and said ‘It’s no wonder then that it won’t fit into my new camera’. We both had a good laugh about it and I left it in his care.

Well the next day I arrived back at the shop only to see your man standing there with a big grin on his face. ‘There was seven photographs on that roll’ he said. I never said a word but just looked at him and he knew by that glean in my eye that I was delighted at his news. I contacted the lady that had given me the camera and told her the good news and sent her a copy of the photographs via my computer. Now it seems that the roll of film was in the camera for almost 40 years, now isn’t that amazing or what? So now the lady has the original photos and negatives along with all the memories that came flooding out of the pictures.

A strange old world alright…