About 10 years ago I was lucky enough to visit the Maldives – it was on the parental dollar of course, I was only 12 or so – and it was ace.

While we were in-transit I nagged my parents to buy me three underwater disposable cameras (for the price of 2) from the airport’s duty free Boots. I was a budding Cousteau and wanted to take pictures of the fish and whatnot. They agreed, probably because they realised this would keep me both occupied and quiet.

Until last week I thought the resulting pictures were lost. Just as time had swept the memories from my mind I thought my Mum had swept the pictures into the bin during one of her overenthusiastic cleaning sessions. However, on Saturday I made the short trip back to rural Leicstershire to visit the folks and uncovered some sunken treasure.

These days time with the family is usually time spent reminiscing. So I had a rummage through the big brown bureau in the living room that houses the family photos. All our family life resides therein; from birthdays to holidays, weddings to sports days. Anyways, while I was digging around in our family time capsule I stumbled upon a dusty old photo CD stuffed with the following encoded memories.

I thought they were worth sharing just in case you never make it to the Maldives, plus Platform loves disposable cameras, right?

I like these pictures. Yes they’re grainy and blurry – if you want to actually observe fish buy a David Attenborough box set – but they reminded me of Stingray, my childhood, and those ten amazing days snorkeling around an underwater paradise.

I wouldn’t say it was the best holiday ever, but it was in the top 1.