We have all been here before

The line from Crosby,Stills, Nash and Young's Deja Vu keeps going round in my head. Maybe not all of us, but I feel I am revisiting some aspect of my past on a daily basis since I started working in the Greater Manchester Record Office two weeks ago. I mentioned last week's connections in my last piece, My Back Pages. This week started with a conversation on the train, as a group of fellow commuters included me in their conversation. ' I'm sure I know you!' said the woman next to me. She recognised my voice and we tracked our past meeting back to my time at On the 8th Day in the late 70s. This isn't the first time this link to 8th Day has happened to me. I am exploring the Documentary Photo Archive daily as part of my new role as archive trainee. I brought some of the material into the archive when I worked at Manchester Studies in the 1980s. My name is on the information sheets, my writing is on the labels for each of the contact prints. What was more surprising is that my new colleague also knew some of my interviewees. We found a letter tucked into one of the files, addressed to me, discussing an exhibition I had helped put on in Wythenshawe in 1983.Flicking through bound copies of the New Manchester Review from 1977 and 78 in the City Library, I came across a photo of one of the artists I met recently at the St Ives Arts Club, Colin Johnson.On Thursday I went for a drink with an old friend after work. We found a bar near where I work, in the Northern Quarter. It was a Kahlua pop up bar, serving a lot of Kahlua. The barman told us it was really The Market restaurant. I realised that many years ago my former husband and I had celebrated moving in together there, and some years later we had battled through January snow to have my birthday meal there the night before we became parents for the first time! Significant occasions. Circles in spirals, wheels within wheels. There's more to come!