Snapshot: My parents in 1970s America

This picture of my parents was taken in the lobby of the Empire State building in New York in 1975. They spotted someone with a Polaroid camera and asked for a photo to be taken. America was celebrating the bicentennial and also recovering from the Watergate scandal. The pocket calculator and the first digital camera – invented by Kodak – were just making an appearance and Abba topped the charts.

My parents were born and brought up in small-town Kerala, India, at a time when travel abroad for work or study was rare. The furthest trip abroad in the family had been made by my maternal grandfather who went to Mesopotamia (now Iraq) during the first world war as an accountant, part of the Indian contingent of the British army. So it was with troubled hearts that they left my three-year-old brother behind (at the insistence of my paternal grandparents) in Alappuzha, Kerala, for the American dream. Telephone lines had not yet made it to their town, so they told relatives they had landed safely by telegram.

My parents' baptism of fire into western culture started in a tiny apartment in Manhattan. They later told me that those years were as alienating as they were intriguing. It was their first time interacting with people of many different races and ethnicities.

The cafeteria counters held a mind-boggling variety of food, fruit and milk and juice fountains. Unable to speak fluent English, Dad says he struggled with interviews and conversations on coin-operated telephones. Visits to now defunct department stores such as Woolworth and Korvette's led to my initially sari-clad mother adding peasant blouses and flared trousers to her wardrobe.

Four years later, they decided they would rather bring up their children in India so they gave up their green cards and went home. Years later, my brothers returned to the US to study, marry and settle; I came to the UK.

In the first months of my marriage, I stumbled on this photograph of Mum and Dad in the early years of their marriage – a vision of innocence and optimism, full of hope for their future. Almost 40 years later, this photo is my favourite because it resonates with me. To me, this is the photo that started it all. Maryann Thomas

Playlist: Our musical turn is a scream

Skullcrusher Mountain by Jonathan Coulton

"I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you / But I get the feeling you don't like it / What's with all the screaming?"

Recently, my cousin got married. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. The dress code was "period" and the guests were wearing all kinds of things, from medieval get-ups to 1920s flapper clothes.

After the ceremony, held at our family church, the whole party hotfooted it round to the country house that had been hired for the dinner and ceilidh. While the photos were being taken, my cousin and new cousin-in-law decided to to stage a sort of musical hall-style intermission, enlising family members.

My mother's side of the family have always been very musical. During holidays we would have "turns" night and everyone would take the stage to sing, act, dance or entertain however they please. (One of my favourites was my aunt's rendition of Jabberwocky – with actions.) Furthermore, when we were children my brother, our cousins and I staged plays in our grandparents' attic including original pantomimes written and narrated by my brother, in tights.

As we grew older, our whole family began to acquire ukuleles and my slightly younger cousin would always play Jonathan Coulton's Skullcrusher Mountain: this was her "turn" at the wedding. Every time I hear this song I think of my cousins, my family, our turns nights, family holidays, the wedding, Christmas, birthdays, any day where that song made an appearance. My mother and I fell in love with this song. Before the line "What's with all the screaming?" we would scream at the tops of our voices. Needless to say this went down hilariously at the wedding.

A few weeks back, I was standing at a train platform listening to the song on my phone and inadvertently screamed on queue, giggling wildly afterwards. Luckily, I was at the far end of the platform so only one person heard me: an interesting start to anyone's day.

Katy Maydon

We love to eat: Neck of lamb with barley soup

Ingredients

8 neck end lamb chops

2 cups of barley

3 carrots, chopped

1 stick celery

1 litre of water

Salt and pepper

Heat a heavy saucepan, add the neck ends, brown them and season. Pour on to the meat a litre of boiling water and add the barley, carrots and celery. Simmer for two hours with the lid on the pan. Serves four.

During the 1960s every Tuesday afternoon from 2-4pm, my mum went to the local wash house to do the family laundry. How did she transport the laundry? In those days, Cyprus potatoes arrived here in a wicker-type basket and the women would ask the greengrocer for them. My nan owned a small greengrocer's so obtaining one or two of these baskets for my mum wasn't a problem. They sat on top of an old pram, to make a go-chair as they were called then.

The wash house is not to be confused with the launderette – this facility was still a few years away where we lived. The wash house visit was two hours of heavy work washing by hand, then spinning and drying clothing on huge drying frames. It was a truly massive place of industrial proportions.

Arriving home from school on Tuesday afternoons, I always knew what was on the cooker simmering away – barley soup with neck ends buried under the barley. I have recreated it recently only to be shocked at the price for such a cheap cut of meat – £6 per kg is outrageous! It serves five with a fight (for the meat). Mike Navarro

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