This series of photographs, from my family album after the death of my mother, became a labour of love and a memorial and testimony to her life. As a disabled working-class Welsh woman, her life was defined by marriage and motherhood, being a good girl, and eventually a good wife and mother. After much deliberation and research into the pages of my family album, I chose images that traced her progression through her life, from babyhood, held by her father (my grandfather), through adolescence, maturity courtship, marriage, motherhood and finally in her older age, hands showing the arthritis that had so limited her life choices. Her hands were always special and emotive to me - clever hands - green fingers that cultivated beautiful house plants, and that sensitively played the piano and organ. Hands that held us as children and that at tunes expressed tension and disapproval (e.g. through the tightened hold on her handbag at one of her daughters’ weddings). One version of my family narrative made possible by the transformation of black and white ‘snaps’ into telling details connection lives and stories across generations.