For me, an irony of the French summer is that it's often too hot to go outside. And so I find myself in my den, trawling through more of my old negatives, which is how I came upon this picture from sometime in the 1990s. It was taken in the Mayor's Parlour at Swinton Town Hall in Manchester, a place I often went during my day-to-day life as a press photographer ..
The occasion was the presentation of an award to a little group of scouts, an event that didn't mean a lot to the majority of the public but was obviously a big event in the lives of these young lads. And what better way to put the icing on the cake than to have a photograph taken for the local press? (Hard to remember now but it was a 'big thing' to have one's photograph in the 'paper. The Manchester Evening News wasn't called 'A friend dropping in' for nothing!) Shots like this were bread and butter for me. Summer fayres, darts competitions, Women's Institute tea-parties .. and the local newspapers were full of these little glimpses into the lives of other people. A pleasing reminder that, all around, things were 'going on'. Groups were thriving, fun was being had, achievements were being made. They were a record of a community in action ..
I loved my days in this swirl of social activity. The variety was incredible and the word 'routine' unheard of. Press photography took me into situations I would otherwise never had had a chance to experience and it's such a shame that local newspapers have now all but disappeared. I thank my lucky stars that I got into the job at the time I did ..
Ps: The 'snapper' in the shot isn't me. I think it's a lad called Harry who used to work for the Salford City Reporter. The 'competition'! Quite often I'd arrive at a job to find it was being covered by another photographer and the fun was to invite them to shoot first and then rearrange the subjects to get a 'better' shot. An absolute creative buzz ..
