Faded pictures

Faded pictures in the hallway. Which of them brown ghosts is he?
Aisling, Shane MacGowan

One of my favourite photographs of my mother is of her smiling, alone in a windswept pac-a-mac and headscarf in front of a rocky outcrop. She’s wearing some funny little shoes that she would invariably have called ‘bootees’. On the back it says “Snowdon Summit. Sept 58” in her clear handwriting that is still so familiar to…