WE have, we think, run this photograph in this slot before, but we print it again today, because the two nine-year-old twins pictured on the right, deeply upset because they did not want to start at their new school, happen to turn 60 today.
The picture was taken in 1968, outside Hunter Primary School, East Kilbride.
The McDevitt family had just relocated from Shettleston, Glasgow, and this meant a change in school for Linda and Audrey. Hence the tears. Not even their mother’s consoling arm was of much use. The photograph shows Linda being comforted by her mother while Audrey stands just to the right.
Audrey, much much later, would acknowledge that while her sister quickly got over her trauma, she herself came down with shingles and was off school for several weeks.
The photograph was used in a Herald and Evening Times Picture This exhibition at the Mitchell Library several years ago. It was one of those images that attract a lot of casual interest, not just because it’s a good picture but also because the trauma it depicts is familiar to many of us from our own, long-ago school days.
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Herald DiaryLinda’s daughter Kristine Park said of the photograph yesterday: “The family had just moved from Shettleston and this was basically them not wanting to go to school.
“The photograph has meant a lot to my mum and my aunt because it keeps popping up in the newspapers every now and then.
“My mum has recently moved back over from Melbourne, in Australia, and it’s been funny seeing it online and then tagging her in it on Facebook.”
All five McDevitt siblings will be back in the UK at the end of May, for the first time since 1982.
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