I was looking for pictures of my friend and don't seem to have any scanned in to the computer, but I did come across one which was taken to 'advertise' our party - it's me pretending to throw myself onto a knife out a window. There's so much talk in the media these days about the prevalence of suicide, but back then (late 70s) it appears that we could more innocently make fun of it...
...committed suicide last year. I only found out this week, which shows how completely out of touch we were. In fact I last saw her over 10 years ago. But in the 70s and early 80s, we were good friends. Such good friends that we spent a month travelling in New Guinea together and a month travelling through Indonesia. We lived in three different households together. When I think about her, I can easily bring to mind her voice, her wry smile, her hair, the little laugh as she spoke, the determined way in which she walked across a room, the busyness as she cooked ... I knew her very well, then.
Stories like this make me feel simultaneously horrified, bemused and incredibly glad that I've never been anywhere near doing this type of thing.
[I know there was supposedly an anti-feminist backlash in the 90s, but lately I've been feeling like not only is there a backlash going on, it's almost as if feminism never happened, for a large segment of young women, and that's very depressing. Last week in the job-which-never-speaks-its-name, I came across an advice article for a major women's magazine which told young women that they *must* wear make-up to work. Full stop. That's what women do.]]
I sent some photos of Olle to a friend in England and she sent this reply: Terrific pix. I can imagine him looking at those in grown-up years to come, and thinking what a golden time.
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