Leaf 131 – Art Inspired
My closest family members have
never been particularly sporty, but the one sport which I think we all share an
enjoyment of – both to watch and play – is tennis. In early summer, when I was
growing up, Wimbledon, during its two-week run, was always on television every
afternoon. After which, during the summer holidays, while the weather remained clement
enough for it, we’d sometimes play tennis ourselves at our local park, or at the
same tennis club which my mother used to go to as a child. Seeing this evocative
photograph of the tennis court at Bletchley Park, by Shibui Shashin, immediately
took me back to my memories of that old tennis club in the suburbs of Northwest
London, where I grew up. It’s no longer there sadly. Built over with houses. But
back when I was growing up, it was still somehow imbued with echoes of its
heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, much like my old primary and middle schools.
And so, it made me think of my mother’s old tennis racquet – bringing back recollections
of drinking Robinson’s barley water, while listening to the thwack of tennis
balls going back and forth on a hot summer’s afternoon.
Loosening the wing nuts,
holding my mother’s
wooden tennis racquet.
