One camera … a castle … a bit of Dorset

The romantic in me would like to think that in the summer of 1643 Lady Mary Bankes might have stared out of this window down on the Parliamentarian forces who were besieging the castle.

Lady Mary's view, Corfe Castle, 1983

She was holding the fortification for the Royalist cause in the Civil War which had broken out the year before.

The castle, 1983

The siege was broken off in the August but two years later the army of Parliament returned and was successful in capturing the castle. *

My Wikipedia tells me that “Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. 

Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. 

The first phase was one of the earliest castles in England to be built at least partly using stone when the majority were built with earth and timber. Corfe Castle underwent major structural changes in the 12th and 13th centuries” **

It was sold on by Elizabeth 1st and was eventually bought by the Bankes family in 1635.

Not that I knew anything about it’s past when we happened in the place during a short summer holiday in Swanage which is just over 5 miles from Corfe.

Nor can I remember much of either the town or the holiday, suffice to say that the pictures I took over 40 years ago record long walks along the beach, the stunning cliffs and a few of Swanage.  

Swanage Town Hall, 1983

Of these there is an indifferent photo of the Town Hall, which Wikipedia says was “Constructed by the local building contractor George Burt in 1882–83, it reused materials salvaged from demolition works in London. 

The façade was rescued from London's 17th-century Mercers' Hall and the external clock is dated to 1826. It was not universally welcomed and one critic in the 1930s described it as ‘positively dreadful’. The hall serves as the chamber for the current town council and has previously hosted the magistrates' court, fire brigade and citizens' advice service”.***

Four decades on the streets near where we stayed haven’t changed that much, although one of them does look a little shabbier and has lost its street name.

But I rather think I located the holiday property and just wonder how different the interior looks from when we stayed there.

Back then the décor and furniture were fixed sometime in the 1960s and the place suffered from only being used a few times a year.

Marshall Row, 1983

And so there so there was a feel of quiet neglect compounded with a slight mustiness, made worse by the dust which caught the morning sunshine.

That said the beach, The Downs and the shops were just a few minutes away.

Revisiting the place forty-two years later I must confess that I can’t remember much else about the town, other than a curious conversation with a man in a pub, who offered us a drink back at his place.

In what seemed a more innocent time I was up for going but my companions were less sure and looking back I guess "stranger danger" was more appropriate. 

He may have been lonely or just friendly but the invitation was not taken up and we walked out into the night looking for a chippy and the offi.

And his collection of fossils and Purbeck stone were left to gain their own film of dust, along with stories and book on Corfe Castle.

The armchair, Park Road, 1983

Location; Corfe Castle and Swanage

Pictures; a castle and a town, 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Lady Mary Bankes and the fall of Corfe Castle, Poole Museum Society Blog, https://poolemuseumsociety.wordpress.com/2015/02/18/lady-mary-bankes-and-the-fall-of-corfe-castle/

**Corfe Castle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfe_Castle

***Swanage Town Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanage_Town_Hall

Ilford ….. the film of choice

Now, when this advert came out in the Eagle comic in 1959, I wouldn’t have given it much thought.

I was just ten, and  the only camera we had was one of those old fashioned bellows ones, which opened out and I am not sure it was ever used.

Although having said that, we have plenty of snaps of us all in the old house in Peckham, so I guess someone used it.

A full twenty years later I had embarked on photography, and after one false start, fastened on the Pentax X 1000, which was the Morris Minor of cameras.  

Mine travelled across Europe, endured the heat of Athens and Paris, and the indifferent weather of Britain, and plenty of places in between, suffering knocks and more than a few damaging encounters with walls as well as one memorable fall down a hill side.

Along the way I got into developing and printing my own pictures before finally going digital.

During my smelly chemical photographic years I used Ilford films and so the Eagle advert strikes a chord.

I was vaguely aware of the connection with the place of the same name, and assumed the company had a history which I shan’t begin to visit, leaving you to follow the link to an interesting story of Ilford’s past.*

Leaving me just to quote from my Wikipedia that “the company was founded in 1879 by Alfred Hugh Harman as the Britannia Works Company. Initially making photographic plates, it grew to occupy a large site in the centre of Ilford”.*

I now prefer using a digital camera, but know plenty of people who still use smelly film, and while digital images are easier to manipulate, I fear they may do history a disservice, because many pictures taken on a modern camera or phone will never be printed off, and at best stay as an electronic version, stored privately and lost when the device becomes obsolete or is lost and damaged.

And so will never make their way into museums as a record of how we once lived.

Pictures; Picture; Be Snap Happy ….. Buy Ilford, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22, and two Pentax cameras, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* The History of Ilford Film, Analogue Wonderland, https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/blogs/film-photography-blog/the-history-of-ilford-film

**Ilford Photo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford_Photo

When social media comes good ……… my friend Chrissy

Now I share the concerns of many about social media ….its ability to be used as a platform to troll people, to advance the daft , dangerous and malicious ideas which wouldn’t even get houseroom once upon a time, and the way it can be used to trivialize serious events.

But and I maintain this most strongly it is also a place where those of us who do not have access to publishers, or galleries can offer up historical research, share stories and show case some excellent photographs.

And here I am thinking of my friends Alan, Tony and Chrissy, all of who in their own way have made social media much more interesting.

Alan writes a regular blog about his parish church in Prestwich which explores the history of the building, and those buried in its grounds, as well as a journal of a week of walking the walks around his bit of Greater Manchester.

Tony turns in some fascinating stories for the blog, which range from the Boer War to the history of his beloved football team and pretty much what ever catches his interest.

And finally there is my friend Chrissy who I have known for over eight years, like me comes from Eltham in south east London and like me is a keen and accomplished photographer.

Today she has set up her own Facebook site, The Photographic Gazette, which is a “A place to post your photographs, of special places of interest, landmarks , or animals , anything”.

And of course, “No photos should be copied from others. Every photo should be your own work , with or without filters .Black and white photos welcome. All photos will be previewed before posting. No adult explicit photos will be accepted”.

So there it is …. A positive slant on social media.

Location; Everywhere

Pictures; Gates, and An empty street covid lockdown July 2021, from the collection of Chrissy Rose.

* The Photographic Gazette, https://www.facebook.com/groups/973270840174059

Tales from a camera ……. mistakes and successes

Now like almost everything I have done over the fifty years as an adult I am best described as an amateur.

The lamppost at the edge of the Pier, 2021

When it comes to writing about the past, the best description is “a jobbing historian” and with photography I have always subscribed to that simple rule of thumb which is spot the opportunity and snap away.

Not for me the carefully composed study taken over an expanse of time which is for the professionals.

All washed out, 2021

Most of the time it works well, but during my smelly photography days, I never had the patience to do test runs of the paper, and was known to guess at developing times, all of which made the end results a bit hit and miss.

Digital works better, but I never underestimate my ability to do something silly, and so it was on Sunday as we happened across Bangor Pier.

And while Tina was parking up, unpacking the boot, I was off happily snapping away, pleased with the scenes I was recording.

But alas that simple maxim of checking everything on the camera was a simple task too far.

So having somehow managed to fiddle with the mode dial, I ended up with a series of images which look washed out.  

And even I can’t be bothered to fiddle with them to produce something artistic.

Happily I noticed my mistake and corrected it before we left the pier, making the rest of the trip from Bangor and onto Menai and Beaumaris more successful.

So that is it.

The landmark, Menai, 2021

Less another history tale of Bangor Pier,* and more a silly story which I suspect only my pals in the Facebook site, All Things Photographic** will appreciate …….. although I suspect some of them will gently tut, and murmur “plonker”.

Location; Bangor

Pictures; Bangor Pier, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Adventures into the West … a pier… some Anglesey glass and two nice people, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/07/adventures-into-west-pier-some-anglesey.html

**All Things Photographic, https://www.facebook.com/groups/331565394411795

What was lost is found family pictures from the 1860s

I am looking at a remarkable collection of photographs from the late 1860s.

The date alone makes them something special but that is not all, for these are a collection which were lost and found, and found in a way that makes you want to write about them.

The Willis family were not aristocrats, nor were they fabulously rich, just a typical upper middle class family which commissioned a series of photographs from 1864 into the next decade.

Now I know a little of the family’s history but today it is the story of those pictures that fascinates me.

Here looking back at us are a group of people of different ages and gender, some looking stern others  a bit preoccupied and yet others just a little bemused by the exercise of having a photograph taken.

The pictures were taken at a number of different studios across London and also as far afield as Belfast, Uxbridge and Oxford.

The most famous of the photographers was Vernon Heath who had studios in Piccadilly from 1865 to 1888, exhibited at the National Gallery, lectured to the Royal Institution, photographed various members of the Royal family and was declared bankrupt more than once, clocking up 19 county court judgements in thirteen years.

In his day he could stop the traffic when he took photographs and was considered one of the leading photographers of his day.

And in to his studios went one of our family.  The rest chose less humble photographers, although Edward Shayler who is also remembered accounted for four of the fourteen pictures that have survived form the 1860s.

And I say survive because the collection had chequered history.  Sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century they disappear only to turn up recently in Portobello Road.

They were found by Mark, a family historian who “had been drawn to the set of photos because they were all in an envelope together and the handwriting on them was in the same hand.”*

Most of them had surnames and with a bit of careful detective work he was able to trace them to my friend Jean and her distant cousin by marriage, Mary. Both are are descendants of the family:
Jean's link is the Willis/Cowley branch, Mary's is the wealthier Stanton/Hooper branch.

That done he passed the pictures on to them which I still think is an amazing example of generosity especially as he refused to take any money for them.

It is a nice story not only because the photographs are back with the family but because someone went out of their way to do the research to give them their proper home.

Now that is the sort of historian I like.

All material for the story from Jean Gammons.

*Jean Gammons

Pictures; from the collection of Jean Gammons

Coming soon; the Willis family by Jean

Pictures I wish I had taken ...... One of the fair, Kurt Hubschmann, 1938

There are always those pictures that you wish you had taken and this is one of them.  

It was taken by Kurt Hubschmann on “a fine summer afternoon in 1938”.

Kurt Hubschmann was born in Strasbourg in 1893 and turned to photography after the Great War, opening a portrait studio in 1923 but became interested in photo journalism and joined the Dephot photo and press agency.

In 1934 he moved to Britain, changed his name to Hutton and became a leading photographer for Picture Post.

I first came across his work in a slim book published by the Focal Press in 1947.*

 It is a wonderful collection of his work and contains detailed technical notes on each of the 88 photographs in the book.

So I know that he took this picture with a Leica and that it was “a fine summer afternoon in 1938”.

I also know something of the background to the shot itself which was part of a commission to record a day at the fair.

“Fair pictures” he wrote "can be very disappointing.  Probably because so much of the atmosphere of a fair is a deliberately calculated effect meant to get to work on human senses and not on the hard unwinking stare of the lens.  

The glitter is bogus and all that is real about a fair are a number of hard working people who are shrewd and very skilful about their jobs.  There is no reason why one should not try to photograph that glitter, but it hardly ever comes off and the fun of the fair escapes – unless it is caught as it is reflected in people’s faces.

It certainly is not in this picture, but the girl’s air of complete aloofness from her surroundings attracted me.  I do not know who she was.  

Probably one of the fair children, bored by the daily round.  I sneaked up, and took a couple of snaps and the next moment she was gone.”

Picture; One of the fair, Kurt Hubschmann, 1938

*Speaking Likeness, K.Hutton, The Focal Press, 1947