As Nick reminds us elsewhere it is that time of the year again. In this day and age of digital cameras, giving me the ability to photograph my children, edit and print the results within five minutes at a cost of less than 20p why do the schools think I am going to buy at a cost of ?14 a snapshot of 32 children, of which only one is known to me. The Class picture (and my son doesn't know the surnames of more than three of them) will include several little girls with their tongues out, at least one boy in the back row making "Bunny Ears" with his fingers behind his mate's head and a scruffy little sod in the front row, picking his nose, who on closer inspection will turn out to be mine.
Double this up as the other one in Juniors now will go through the same performance making a potential outlay of ?28 for pictures that mean nothing to me and that will lie mouldering in a drawer for years.
In my research into family history I found, among my late mother's possessions, a school photograph of me in what would now be year 5 (ie last year but one prior to 11 plus exams). I could recognise me. I could not name any other child of the 51 in the picture, nor can I remember the name of the teacher standing beside us. What was the point of that?
I have now trained my two lads to tell the teachers "Daddy says no thank you" but the schools still insist on them posing with their class mates as "Others may want to keep the photos to remember their school days". Who the f*ck could forget them ~ I still have the scars.
I am now planning to claim that taking photographs of my boys, that they and I do not want, is a breach of their human rights and see what the head teacher makes of that one!
