When I was ten or eleven my primary school class was taken on a trip to Blenheim Palace.
Big excitement as it included a boat trip on the Thames. 
I don’t remember too much about the trip but I did have this Brownie Box camera and a whole twelve picture roll of film.
The camera has a now cracked leather carrying strap on top and is surprisingly lightweight. It has two built-in viewfinders – one each for horizontal and vertical – and a film advance knob on the side.
I knew somehow – probably from reading the arts section of the Sunday paper – that “real” photographers didn’t take holiday snaps but rather sweeping and interesting landscapes and dramatic scenes of deep and enduring meaning and significance.
I remember standing in the grounds and lining up vistas of sweeps of lawn and statuary. All extremely dull and unremarkable. How much more interesting to have instead pics of kids mugging for the camera and eating sandwiches on the boat. But – so be it.
Clearly I had artistic pretensions back in the day. I still have the camera – alas without the canvas carrying case. And as for the pretensions – I still have them too.
Nostalgia packaging – how I love the look of that Kodak. My first camera must have been a Kodak too, but I only have the results of a day trip to Stonehenge. Not bad black and white photos, but as you say devoid of human interest.
I understand it’s still possible to get film that works in that Brownie but don’t think I’ll bother, although it’s tempting. Meanwhile it looks out owlishly from the bookshelf and reminds me of les temps perdu.