A makeshift chariot in the back yard, a memory of times when self sufficiency & innocence was everything.There is no humour in this: the children look noble in their endevour, immersed in the dream. This picture is a delight. It conveys an unworldly feel and it is quite profound.

Chad Doveton: Very well put, thank you, Tiff

I don't know that I can claim this image has meaning for me, but I can observe that it has substance and a non-visual quality that summons up childhood [distant past in my case].

There was a time and a place where children's romantic notions were not entirely commercialised and managed. That was when one used what was available to create a facsimile of the mystical world of child fantasy....a banana box became a galleon, or a locomotive...or a war chariot; a scrap of cloth became a prince's cape, or Tarzan's loincloth, or a mighty sail. Everyone could participate. Creation of the rules and context were part of the experience.

It seems more difficult for kids now. Most of the fantasy is already drawn and coloured in, and only the defiant few seem to have the energy and will to get the whole experience.

Photographs are not memories, but do catalyse the memory process.

Chad Doveton: That is extremely well put, Ray. Your final sentence is spot on. In art all meaning belongs to the viewer. I like your comment regarding the current state of things where the child's world of fantasy is prepared and fed ready made. Does that mean our children an now merely participants and no longer authors. I do not know but thanks for the comment. Regards, chad