Reunion Day, and a Camera in Hand

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSunny start to the day Anita's been building towards, which felt like a decent omen, or at least the kind of thing you allow yourself to read as one. I went off for my usual rounds, the ordinary rhythm of a morning carrying on regardless of what the afternoon had planned.

Meanwhile, the machinery of the reunion was already turning — balloons and flowers delivered to the Majestic, the venue transforming itself from whatever it usually is into whatever an occasion like this needs it to be. There's something faintly theatrical about watching a room get dressed for an event, all that quiet effort going into something that will look, by three o'clock, entirely effortless.

My role for the day had been decided in advance: photographer, official and unpaid, which is its own particular kind of pressure. Everyone remembers the photos long after they've forgotten the seating plan. The event kicked off at three, though my actual cue wasn't until five, which left a stretch of waiting that photographers apparently just accept as part of the job — camera ready, moment not yet arrived, the trick being to look useful in the meantime rather than simply hover.

When the moment came, though, it went smoothly. That's really the best thing you can say about any event with this many moving parts — nothing went sideways, nothing needed rescuing, the whole afternoon unspooled the way it was meant to. Anita was happy, which was really the entire point of the day as far as I was concerned, everything else being logistics in service of that one outcome. We got the photos we wanted too — the proper ones, the kind that get looked at again in years rather than glanced at once and forgotten.

By the end of it I was thoroughly tired, the specific tiredness that comes from being on duty all day without quite realising it, camera as much a part of the afternoon as I was. But worth it, unreservedly — the sort of day where the exhaustion at the end feels less like a cost and more like proof that it mattered. Anita's reunion, properly done, properly documented, and properly over. Now for the sofa.