Past and present

We took our town's  refugee family on an outing to a 'reconstructed' iron age village: a hilltop compound of realistic roundhouses, ancient crafts and smoky fires. We met pigs and sheep, made clay pots and lumpy bread,  joined the Roman army (which happened to be invading that day), ran races, shared a picnic, and, most fun of all, paddled and screamed and splashed stones into the river. (Not all of us did all those things.) 

Everyone was relaxed and happy and it was a joy to see the children (aged 1 to 10) so lively and high-spirited out in the open air. They were keen to borrow cameras to record what they saw and while I was happy to lend mine I have to say the picture quality hasn't turned out quite as I expected. Nevertheless, some great shots of big splashes were captured as well as pics of selves and  others. I even found  one of myself.

I've added a bunch of extras, not all mine,  that I'll leave up for a few days: round houses, making, baking, racing, Romans, pigs, paddling, portraits. (The family are happy to be photographed by the way.)

On the subject of children using cameras you might like to look at this poignant photo-essay about kids in Sarajevo then and now by a photographer who taught basic camera techniques to children in an orphanage there in 1997 and went back to see what had become of them.