Ages of innocence

Following on from my previous post I have finished scanning the box of slides and managed to put together some montages in chronological order. Age 4

I know this for a fact because that was when I started prep school and the photograph is obviously my first day. I HATED that school so much, as one of the youngest in a small prep school I was bullied beyond belief, I and another sweet thing called Penny had a dreadful time and what saved my sanity was the birth of my sister, the lack of money meant I went to a state school and thankfully never looked back. I have a life long hatred of private schools because of this.
Far left
This is my preferred style of dress at that age. I remember loving waisted dresses and peter pan collars.
Center
rocking that double breasted Harris tweed. On the larger image I can see my favourite raglan sleeves.
Near right
rocking that whole clash to match look.
Far right
Yeah, stripy t shirt.
All these photographs were from before my sisters arrived, what I notice is how happy I was as a child and how similar I look to Leyla, although thankfully her sub Saharan jaw is kicking in where poor D&K have my weak Anglo Saxon one.
Finally the hair, dear God Mother why, why, why with the short hair? I remember someone referred to me as 'lad' and from that moment on no scissors came near my hair until my late teens!
So as you can see the hair is growing, skirt lengths are rising and sadly my preferred waisted dresses have been replaced by the dreaded A-line.. But I kept the peter pan collar though. Still with the double breasted tweed but now my beach apparel is a home knit Guernsey, check out those brown pins!

Hair was still growing! here I am 11ish, the evidence is that final photograph, the one where I came third in the fancy bicycle competition I was still at primary school.
Top left, with my sisters, they were inseparable and frequently mistaken for twins so close are they in age. Top right is my favourite I am so glad I found this photograph it was taken when we had Japanese exchange students and Masako let me wear her kimono, she was the same height as me! but I was tall for my age.
Most of all when I look at that photograph I feel sadness that it was probably the last one before the dreadful teenage years and all the conflict that ensued. I probably still had a tenuous relationship with Mother but already I can see I am self-consciously not smiling. It was all downhill from there.