This is probably in the wrong place, but we have just read the article by ngairedith, about the value of family photos, and it reminded us of a man who served in the army with my husband. Most of us lived a great distance from our own families, and when our children went to the local school, it was only the "Army kids" who did not have grandparents to attend their school sports, fetes and similar things, but most of us, at some time, had our parents come to visit us, and thus the kids had their grandparents with them at least on some occasion when they visited and stayed with us in the many far flung places at which we were posted over the years. A friend of ours, another solider, had been brought up in an orphanage, he had no idea of who his parents were, and stayed in the orphanage till he was 17 then enlisted in the Army, and his children used to ask him when they would have their grandparents visit, and he told them that his parent were dead. One day he noticed two big picture frames in a second hand shop, the old fashioned semi circular ones, with a photo of a distinguished gentleman in one, and a well dressed lady in the other, so he purchased them, they were about two pounds each (this happened in 1962) and took them home, cleaned them, and hung them on the wall in the hallway of the family home, and when the children asked who they were, he told them they were his parents, and his children were so excited, and when their friends came to visit, they used to say to the friends, "Look, Dad got us some photos of my grandpa and grandma" and as far as we can recall, those photos took pride of place in their home wherever they lived. It was a fib he told them, but it made those three children so happy to know that they did have grandparents, even though they could not meet them, and we have no idea if he told them the truth when they grew older, but it certainly made three young children (aged in 1962 at 6, 8 and almost 10) so happy that they had "roots" and a set of grandparents they could see, even if only in a picture frame.