This is a little bit of a long story, so please bare with me...


Before my daughter was born I taped family get togethers, hanging out with my friends in my and their bedrooms etc.


Since my daughter was born 7 years ago, Ive been capturing her on video a lot. Usually 15 minutes per month (even if nothing is going on), but more if there was a special occasion, special event, or we were going somewhere. At the moment I have 40 three hour VHS tapes full of her growing up. I did this because we never had any home movie cameras or video cameras around our family when I was a kid, except for the few times when an older uncle would film, and that was so rare that I was only on the film once for about 10 seconds, and there was a video from 1984 where I was on film for about 5 minutes all up...Anyway, I wanted to give my daughter the gift of having her life (special occasions and not) on camera so she could look back at her life through film. This is something I actually really really wish someone had done for me, but noone had....Or not that I knew of or remembered.


The other week I was at an aunties house helping her move. I went up into her attic and began carrying some boxes down the stairs. When I came into better light I noticed that the boxes had my name on them. I asked my aunty if I could look inside them, and she told me that I could have the boxes and whatever was inside of them because she remembered that at one time she had come into possession of them and had meant to give them to me. They apparently hadnt been opened for about 15 years. There were 28 boxes in all with my name on them. I didnt open them because we were very busy, so I loaded them onto the back of the moving van and took them home, where I left them so I could look at them when I returned.

That night, after finishing the moving (FINALLY), I arrived home and began to open the boxes. In the first box there were film canisters, about 20 of them. I opened one of the canisters and looked at the film...I couldnt be sure, but there seemed to be a picture of me.

Ten of the boxes contained film canisters, all dated from 8th of December 1971 to the 25th of December 1983. I looked in the other boxes, and there I found VHS tapes. They also had dates on them. For example, 8th of December 1971 to 30th of June 1972. I put the first tape (in chronological order) into the video machine and pressed play...

The date 8th of December 1971 came up on the screen...Then there was my mother and my Father. My Mum was putting a pillow up her shirt to simulate being pregnant. There was Christmas day 1971, New Years eve 1971 and New years Day 1972, footage of my Mum getting more heavily pregnant, beach scenes, parties, a baby shower etc, all dated in chronological order. Then footage of me as a new born baby. There was footage of around my old home where I lived until I was ten years old, family looking younger than Id ever seen them.

The film was silent, but even though I couldnt hear anything, I could see plenty...My Grandparents (all of whom had died by 1998), friends Id forgotten about, days out at the ocean bathes, my first day at achool, ALL the Christmases and birthdays I celebrated between 1972 and 1983. I checked the films and worked out that allthe films, plus some that werent there, had been transfered onto the videos.

In 1978 all of a sudden there was sound!!! And the footage looked different. When the camera moved too quickly the light steaked across the ecreen for a few seconds...It was filmed on a video camera. For the first time in 20 years I heard my Nana (Mums mum) talking in Welsh and English, I heard my best friend in 1978, I heard my voice as well. Its funny when you never noticed yourvoice changing to all of a sudden hear how much it had really changed. On the videos was a trip I took with my Dad to Queensland.

I rang my aunty and asked her who filmed all of this stuff...Apparently my cousin (who was 14 when I was born) decided to make me her pet project and film as much of my life as possible. I dont know why she did, she just did. Apparently I didnt remember much because she was doing it so much that I just got used to it, and so it wasnt a big deal to me. And when she wasnt there or couldnt be there to film, she got my Mum and/or Dad to film me. They stopped in 1983 because she was killed in a car crash.


It was amazing to see things the way they were...The people (family friends and neighbours), the places (my home that I moved out of in 1982, my home town of Newcastle Australia, Sydney, the beach, the bathes etc), my pets, the fashions, the music, and myself.


I am wondering, has anyone else had the same kind of experiences finding old films that that you never knew existed which brought back memories? Photos that you never knew existed? Or maybe you have old family films that youd not seen in years and watched them and were happily stunned when you saw what life was like back then?



Thanks for baring ith me...Im just so excited...Ive not actually gone through all of the videos yet, and Im in the process of putting them onto DVD.



AN

I love nostalgia and reminiscing about my youth and would love to come across a find like you did. What pure excitement you must have as you explore your past.  Very cool stuff, Have fun.

All i have to say is that you are so very very lucky to have this. I wish someone had done the same for me. The only video footage i have of me is my primary school graduation video from the late 80s. The rest of my memories are all documented on photos from the late 70s & early 80s when i was a kid & there isn't nearly enough of them. I think the main reason for this is because we weren't well off enough to afford a video camera. I love nostalgia & reminiscing aswell i will make very sure that when i have my kids they will have lots of footage of them as they grow up & i will give them what i missed out on. I also couldn't help notice that you mentioned you were from Australia aswell, good to see another aussie on here. :)

My dad had an old 16 mm film camera and used it quite frequently. I remember we used to set up a movie screen in our livingroom and sit around watching these old home movies. But today, how many people have a 16 mm projector anymore (or even know where to get one).  Several years ago, my mother is a GREAT thing. She took all those old home movies and transfered them to video and gave all of us a copy. Yes, they are silent but that doesn't matter. There are old movies of my great-grandparents, my grandfather and many more people who are no longer with us. It is truly a wonderful treasure (even though we all know that there is at least one roll of film missing). My brother is now taking this one step farther (with the help from my sister). My sister sat down with my 97 years young grandmother to watch the old movies with a tape recorder running. My grandmother had "narrated" the movies-who's who, etc. My brother is now taking that narration and combining them with the movies and put it on DVD. He said that they should be ready some time next year. I can't wait.

At my sister's 50th birthday party in Oct. my brother put those movies up on a t.v. that was in the rented hall for all to see (without the narration). We all laughed because most of them were of our old dance recitals and there was usually a short one of us at the end of each line.  ;D ;D We are sure that my sister's friends were wondering what those movies were all about.  But, the funniest one IMO was when all the nieghborhood kids were in our front yard with hula hoops (circa 1963 or so).  There must have been about 10-15 kids. It was just too funny.



Cat

Enjoy every minute.  When my Dad passed away we kids came into possession of all my Mom & Dad's photos. Lots of memories, but they never marked them where or when, or who.  That was 1996 and we still don't (and prob. never will) have most of them marked. We keep plugging at it so our kids can at least see what some of their forefathers looked like.  All the pictures taken by my wife & I are marked as we received them before we could forget what was what. I wish everyone would take the time. So much info dies with each individual.    W.

That's cool, Alright.

So many of our memories of things are all wrong. You've got a chance to see things again as they really were.
My mother passed away two years ago and I got all the old pictures my parents had of me from my grade school days until high school -- and my mom dated everything, so it's odd seeing and knowing exactly when some of those old memories actually happened.

;)