Ashton and The Gold Chain
Well, my object is a gold chain. Now, my gold chain is on me all the time. I rarely take it off, I go to bed with it. This gold chain was a present from my dad, when I was about sixteen. And I remember going to the jewellers and he was like, 'Right, we're going to get you some jewellery now'.
I wasn't even really excited, like, 'Yeah, I want to get a gold chain!' But I remember looking at the window, and there was a silver chain that was quite big and then this one, which was like a reasonable size and he was like, 'Yeah, I'll get that for you.' And I don't know, maybe it's a thing, so I could remember my dad. I don't know a reason why he opted for me to have it. Maybe it's something that I will pass on to my kids or you know, other family members to say, 'Well, that's what my dad gave me.' And he's probably just starting the trend of, you know, handing it down to other members of the family.
I also got a gold bracelet, sort of thing, if that's what you call it.The bracelet I didn't really keep, but the chain has always been on me. And I think it's one of the objects, which is amazing, because it's on me it's also gone through all of my experiences in life. So, you know, all the holidays and trips that I've been on or people that I've met and so on. And it's always been on me. Now, it's interesting because it's always on me, I tend to forget it's there. And there might be one or two occasions where someone might say, 'Oh, your gold chain' or 'Where did you get that from?'.
Someone approached me and said, 'Look, that gold chain's great. It's amazing that you've got it'. And I said, 'Why? What's so cool about it?' And he goes, 'Well, if you go to another part of the world, then you get into a sticky situation, you can just like, sell your chain.' Like it's just part of money that you have, that you can get rid of; I didn't really think of it like that, but that's cool, if that's what you'd want a chain for.
But yeah, I guess, it's become part of me. And I feel that I will continue wearing it, you know. I don't see myself getting up one morning and leaving it at the table side.
Ashton John is a documentary filmmaker.