Magic Lantern

My late father's Bolex Paillard M8 beautifully-engineered, precision-built film projector.  Magically, after perhaps thirty years of inaction, the lamp lit on the turn of the switch, as the motor revved up and then settled into its familiar quick-slow rhythm. I threaded on a standard eight film remembering, instinctively, to leave loops above and below the sprockets either side of the projection window.  And there he was...Dad, relaxed and tanned on Brodick beach in 1976, playing to the camera - all smiles, laughs and hand gestures - as only he could. I was the sixteen year-old behind the lens, that day, just nine months before he died.