There’s a well known question used by magazines in interviews and sometimes in dinner party games that goes, “if there was a fire at your home what is the one item you would have to save”. It’s quite difficult to arrive at just one, but when you slowly sift through the final few there are often items that could be replaced even if it wouldn’t really be the same as having the original.

For me, the above photo is the one thing I would hate to lose. It was taken on 31st October 1925 at the wedding of Kathleen Annie Haycocks to Thomas Kenna, my maternal Grandma and Grandad. The wedding took place at Armley Parish Church in Leeds. 31 years later it was at that church my mother and father were married, and a year later I was christened there.

I have become the repository for all the family photos over the years as they know I like to have them and any associated documents, but this photo was only given to me a few years back, I think around the time my mum last moved house.

Although I don’t remember my Grandad well, I can recognise the man I knew in the photo, but my grandma is just like a totally different person. I guess I only knew her when she was much older, and all other photos I have of her, even though she might have been in her late forties or fifties, always looks older than her years because of the austere fashion. When I saw this photo it must have been the first time I actually ever thought about her being a young woman.

By that age, both 26, like many born before the turn of the century, they had lived through pretty traumatic times. My Grandad had served on The Somme and was injured, suffering emphysema following a mustard gas attack, and had a metal plate in his skull where he had been hit by shrapnel. My grandma, who was a factory worker, had been put over to manufacturing munitions.

Despite his injuries my grandad lived until 1964 so they had the best part of 40 years together. For my first few years, until he was too ill to continue, they ran a greengrocers shop in the Hyde Park district of Leeds. Once he died my grandma moved to London to be with us until she went to join him some 8 years later.

I would so like my grandma to be about now so that I could ask her about the day. Get all the details written down of who was there, what things cost, where they went on honeymoon etc. My mum knows a few of the details but I’ll never know the full story. SO if I ever find that genies lamp, one of my wishes will be to spend an evening with Grandma and Grandad and talk about their wedding.

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