Small world

My dad (pictured here getting attacked by a group of seagulls keen on his fish and chips) went a concert yesterday with a fellow retired colleague from work. They were discussing my Eastbourne Pier project when the colleague (whose name is Brian) mentioned that they both know one of the members of the Eastbourne Pier Society. It appears they all used to work together in the 1970s. Brian telephoned his number through last night and also mentioned he (Brian) had an old (I’m not sure how old) Eastbourne Pier ticket from the days when it used to cost to go on it. Brian is a public transport obsessive who also collects tickets. Maybe a portrait of him.

Untitled

4,500

Uploaded my 4,500th photograph to Flickr today. My first 10,000 are the worst. I'm on my way :)

Dear Paul

Almost definitive Eastbourne Pier postcard title/subject list

In no particular order...

• A pier is born
• The pier today
• Eugenius Birch
• Architecture, structure etc
• WWII
• Culture
• Camera obscura
• Visitors and interviews
• Fish and fishing
• Boats etc
• The future
• Miscellaneous eccentricities

Editing begins

A trip to Eastbourne Reference Library yesterday failed to reveal anything of significance or major interest beyond a short piece on the reopening of the camera obscura on May 30, 2003 in the riveting Piers (The Journal of the National Pier Society). The camera obscura had been closed since a fire started deliberately by an employee of the night club underneath way back in 1970 made the entire structure unsafe. I’ve been trawling newspaper archives to find out more about the arson attack, with a view to finding the culprit and doing a portrait of him (I think it was a him) standing on the pier. Newspaper archives so far have drawn little beyond a few amusing stories about drunks, nudes and others getting rescued from the water around the pier after jumping off for a wide range of reasons including suicide, mental illness and (in the case of the kid who tried tombstoning off the pier a couple of months ago), idiocy. It’s interesting how the stories feed the photographs and the photographs feed the stories. My working method’s always been to give space within a project to allow happy accidents to penetrate the concrete visions I have. I’m at last putting together the first proper list of pictures and subjects for the backs of the postcards and starting the process of editing everything together. I’ve by no means finished taking photographs and will visit the pier at least two more times, plus one extended trip to take photographs until the battery runs out on the Nokia. At least one card will feature four photographs together on the front.

The other project

From left to right, Uncle Brian, grandma, dad, Auntie Wendy, granddad and Auntie Jean, taken in the house they all lived in in Purley just before the outbreak of WWII. Grandma and granddad are long gone bless their souls, but their children are all still alive (my dad the youngest at 76 and Auntie Jean now 82). This is the granddad who was a pilot (see About Me) and who wrote two books. With the exception of Auntie Wendy, all of the people seen here have written the stories of their lives in one form or another. Auntie Wendy has recently become the custodian of the Schofield family photo archive. I’m going to see her next week to borrow the archive and scan it. I’m also going to work some more on her and get her started on her memoirs. I recently discovered that grandma’s sister, my great aunt Alice (who I loved dearly and who died when I was only 11) was an embarrassment to the family. A fervent communist, Auntie Alice used to go on holiday behind the Iron Curtain and was always entertaining people from what were at the time Warsaw Pact countries. Skeletons don’t interest me. Colour does. Auntie Alice was especially colourful. My granddad was a home-movie fanatic and shot hours of 16mm black and white material of his young family in the 1930s. All of it was lost. Incidentally, this photograph was taken by a woman. I don’t know why I’m adding this.