Rebecca & Lauren - Rosa ' Sexy Rexy' 28 June 2025

It was perhaps 18 years ago on a Saturday that I photographed my two granddaughters in our large corner garden in Kerrisdale. They came for some babysitting. I decided to photograph them with Lauren holding a raceme of Rosa ‘Sexy Rexy’ .

Originally when Rosemary and I moved into the house with our two daughters n 1986 the garden had a circular bed in the centre of the back garden with roses. Little by little we replaced them as Rosemary did not like some of them. I remember buying Rosa ‘Sexy Rexy’ as I thought it might have been named after Rex Harrison whom my mother thought was awfully sexy. I was wrong about the naming but we kept the rose as it was lovely.

I believe that as an avid portrait photographer who photographed our family lots, that my memory of events of that past life has the added intrusion (reinforcement?) of the photographs that make the memory a graphic one. Sexy Rexy disappeared from our garden. It may have died or when we moved to our smaller Kits garden perhaps I gave it away to someone.

It was a few months ago when I went to my local nursery, Hunters Garden Centre, that I spotted a Rosa ‘Sexy Rexy’. I had to smile. It immediately brought my memory not so much about the rose as the lovely portrait of Rebecca and Lauren. I bought the rose.

Because I have a scanner I was able to scan both the photograph and the first bloom today.

The resulting scanograph somehow conveys to me a past moment that will never return. Lauren was 23 yesterday and Rebecca is 27. My Rosemary is gone. The image is bittersweet for me.