Meeting Ralph

Today Saul and I traveled to Lowedges to meet with Ralph, one of the people we had met from the Lowedges Friendship Group a couple of weeks ago. The last week we were there Ralph was ill so we didn't get chance to speak to him about the photos he has, and since he has quite a few albums it was easier for him to have us come round to his house rather than meet him somewhere else. 

We had arranged to meet him at 11am at his house. I rang him up many times beforehand that morning before we set off to check that we were still coming to meet him, but there was no answer. We decided to travel there anyway and find his house. When we got there, he wasn't in but we could hear the phone ringing inside, so it was his address. I rang him again on the bus ride home just to check and he picked up - he'd misheard us and thought we were coming to meet him at 7 that evening. We got off the bus, waited for another and returned to his house, of which Saul took some photos. 

Ralph had around five photo albums with photos to show us, so we sat down and went through them - recording the whole conversation on the Zoom for reference (below).

At 88 years old, the earliest photos he had were of his time in Germany during WW2, where he was stationed with a small group of people and had the job of riding his motorbike between camps delivering supplies. I remembered him speaking briefly about this in the first meeting we had a fortnight ago, so asked him more about his experience, where he went, who he met, and any particular memories pertaining to the photographs - which were amazingly well preserved and extensive. He told us about how he met his German wife Karla whilst working over there and how there was tension within his family when he brought her back to live in Sheffield. 

We spoke for about an hour about this and gradually moved through the other albums, which were mainly photos from different eras in the house, but it was interesting to see the progression of time moving through the collections. Afterwards, he showed us around the house which was filled with other photos and bits and pieces from throughout his life like paintings and holiday souvenirs. Whilst we did this I took note of potential cutaway shots to share with the rest of the group afterwards, as well as the lighting and space within the rooms for filming which might prove difficult. 

At the end of the conversation we asked Ralph if he'd be comfortable with us filming him and his house and talking to us on camera as he had been doing with us there. We arranged to come round to his house at the same time next Wednesday, and I will make sure this time to ring him the day before and on the morning as a reminder. At this stage it is difficult to gauge whether we would have enough material with him alone to make the film into a portrait of his life (if desired), but we'd also want to make sure the film linked to the broader themes of memories and photographs as outlined in our treatment.

Tomorrow we will tell Debbie about our meeting during the tutorial, and from here we will be able to decide a structured approach to the film using Ralph, and create a plan for the interview including a detailed shot list and carefully chosen questions.