My view ..

 

 

 

 

 

We're a few days into the COP 26 conference in Glasgow and, not surprisingly, there's been rather a glut of depressing tv programmes about climate change. On one, an Australian woman was talking about a plague of mice her farm had suffered, after enjoying a bumper crop of cereal after years of drought. Literally famine or feast! The presenter then cut to a shot of Madagascan islanders, starving to death because of the way we're fucking up the world. And then it struck me.. 

 Which was the more sensible species? The mice, obviously! Their population only exploded when there was ENOUGH food to go around. Our population is expanding regardless of any such consideration. The mud hut in Madagascar was literally teeming with little children, brought into the world even though their parents knew they lived under incredibly unfavourable circumstances, and you have to ask yourself .. why? The matriarch of the family described the kids as 'gifts from God'. He should have given them the gift of reason, and perhaps they might have worked out that having so many children might not be such a good idea after all. Religion has got a lot to answer for!

I can't say it enough. Contraception should have been the first thing the COP 26 delegates discussed this week. We have GOT to cut down on the number of people on this planet. Critics of my position tell me that, if my parents had used a condom that chilly November day back in 1959, there would have been no such thing as 'me'. My answer is .. well, I wouldn't be here to worry about that, would I?

COP .. Contraception on Prescription!

Please!

Half a bloody century .. !

What were you up to exactly fifty years ago today? I'll tell you what I was doing .. my French homework! I know this because I still have in my possession the exercise book in which I did it. (I'm a right little hoarder, I am!)

Yes, half a century ago - September 27th 1971 -  little eleven-year old me had just started at Eccles Grammar School and was getting my first taste of the French language. Little did I know that, fifty years on, I'd be living in the country and still trying to learn it!

Oh well, at least I've done my homework!

 

 

 

 

Four years!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the late summer Bank Holiday Monday in the UK, a date that will stay with me forever. It was on this day, incredibly four years ago, that I photographed my last ever Wedding in England. Now, as I sit here - completely retired - it feels a different world. Weddings filled my days back then .. either shooting them or editing them or promoting myself and looking for bookings. Man, the hours I spent trying to get couples to book me for their Big Day. I don't miss it a bit ..

Me and Abe Lincoln

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Father's Day, and yet another year without my old pop. Here we are in New York, well over half my lifetime ago. I fucking hated that 'Abraham Lincoln' beard he'd decided to grow, but now I'd give anything to give that bristly chin a cheeky scratch. Miss you Dad x

Over the rainbow ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After three years, I'm still trying to get my books published, and I was rather encouraged to hear that the daughter of a friend of mine has just had her work accepted, until she told me that it had taken ... FOURTEEN years for that to happen!

I'll be almost 75 in fourteen years. I hope I've still got my marbles about me to enjoy all the acclaim, the TV shows, the book tours, the wine, the women, the song ..

Ah, dream on, Martin. Still, it's a nice dream .. the publication, that is, not the wine, women and song. One just needs to keep one's chin up as one trundles along that long and unforgiving road. 

There must be gold at the end of the rainbow ..

 

To Dad ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's twelve years today since my Dad died. Here he is around 1980, aged about 47. Sharing a flat with him in my twenties, I was never short of a model whenever I needed to test a new lens, or a new way of lighting. He absolutely loved having his photograph taken, and you can see why. He really was a handsome bastard ..

This week, my Carte de Sejour finally came through .. my legal permission to live here in France. I was delighted, of course, but one of the things that cheered me most was the reaction from people who saw my card. Wow, they said, you look just like your Dad. Ha ..

Love you, Dad ..

 

The wait goes on ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"A good read."

"Your powers of description are excellent."

 "The characters are nicely portrayed, to the extent that they're easy to visualise. I can even hear their accents."

 Just some of the compliments coming in for my latest book, called SNAPS, which is out now in .. absolutely no form whatsoever! (So a big thank you to the patient pals who've taken the time to read the stuff I've sent them!)

No, sadly, I still haven't had any publishing interest in my work and am now seeing that as a badge of honour. Hey, if it took 47 attempts to get Booker prize winner Shuggie Bain into print then I'm right on track!

I'm sure success is just around the corner, though. I can feel it in my bones. The best-seller list beckons for both SNAPS and my first book, intriguingly entitled Page 99, by Joe Bancroft. Both are based on photography. 99 is semi-autobiographical, and SNAPS is the completely fictional story of the South Neldon Amateur Photographic Society. Well, they do say 'write about what you know,' don't they?

 So, any literary agents out there reading my blog? I'll be home all day if you want to get in touch!

Meantime, a nice shot of my Mum, taking my picture in about 1974. Question is, where's my Mum's bloody picture of me ..?

No ordinary Joe ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm marking Saint Joseph's Day with a photograph of my favourite 'Joes' .. my Dad and my Grandad.

In the Catholic Church, Joseph is the patron saint of workers and, in these two guys, the name couldn't have been more apt. Man, they were grafters ..

My Grandad always used to tell me he was a gravedigger and, to this day, I'm not sure whether or not he was joking. I know he used to scare me to death with stories of ghostly sightings in the graveyard ..

As for my Dad, the poor fella never stopped working, right up until the day, way back in the early 80s, when he was made redundant. Talk about being thrown on the scrapheap .. 

Tonight I'll raise a glass of Guinness to these two strong Ulstermen, now both long gone. And to Dad, an extra special thank you. He gave me the middle name of Joseph and, today, I couldn't be more proud .. 

Hail Mary ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

A year ago today we dashed out in the morning for one last bike ride before a noon lock-down kicked into being ..

That's it. End of blog. Well, it's not as if I'm the only person in the world to be going through this, is it? No, it's just an excuse to show you one of my travel shots, this one from Brazil showing care-free holidays and a bit of intercession from The Virgin Mary. Two things we're probably all praying for, right now ..  

Just like the old days ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend I did something I've not done in a long time. I unwrapped the cellophane from around a new CD ..

(I almost feel that, at this point, I should explain to younger readers exactly what a CD is!)

How exciting it was to open up that clear little box and listen to versions of songs I've never heard before. It brought it all back. All that rushing to record shops to buy the new Blondie single, and waiting outside HMV for The Smiths latest album. I can even remember when CDs came into my life, picking them up second-hand in America and then having to buy a CD player when I got back to the UK ..

My friend says I'm stuck in the past when it comes to my taste in music but I try, I really try, to listen to new stuff that I might like. The trouble is, I don't like it. Music really was better in my day (© My Dad, circa 1978)

So yes, it's been a long time since I bought a new CD. The irony is, it was a CD of Manchester band The Diagram Brothers 'Peel Sessions' recordings, which came out in 1980 ..

Ooops ..  

A day without music ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's not a lot of moshing going on at the moment, is there? Not that I go gigging very much these days, but it's a shame for 'the kids', who are being deprived of a very vital part of their lives. I couldn't have lived without bands and music when I was in my twenties ..

As if to illustrate the point, I happened upon my diary for February 1981. It tells me that, this exact week forty years ago, I went to see Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Bad Manners and the UK Subs, and also that The Spliff Radio Show were on the Old Grey Whistle Test and there was a new single from a band with the very apt name of The Photos ..

Just to show that's not a fluke, the next week I went to see The Drones, the Expressos, U2 and The Freshies, and the week after that I saw Duran Duran, Discharge and The Revillos ..

Out of all those I can only remember the U2 gig, which was at Manchester Poly, where there was a big painting of Dennis the Menace on the wall. Gives a bit more meaning to their song 'A day without me' ..

It's a long road ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm thinking of having my yacht re-sprayed. It looks so boring in white ..

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. When I get a yacht I will no doubt, at some stage, have it re-painted. I will have bought a yacht because the film rights to a book I've written will get taken up by a big Hollywood studio and I'll be assigned the role of artistic director to oversee accurately creative filming. The film rights will have been bought after an unsightly mega-tussle because my book will be such a massive best-seller that all the studios will want to get it to the big screen. The book will have been so successful because nine publishers all wanted to get their hands on it and the highest bidder paid out big styley. The publishers went crazy for the book because seven separate literary agents all wanted to represent me ..

And this is where I wake up again. At the 'literary agent' bit. Yes, I'm having a bit of trouble with that bit. 

Like a zillion other 'writers', I don't seem to be able to get anyone interested in taking it on. By sheer coincidence, I got yet another rejection email this morning but an email from one agent described perfectly to me how hard it is to get selected. She receives, she tells me, five manuscripts every .. what? Every week? Every day? Folks, she receives five manuscripts an HOUR!

So, the yacht, the respray, the mega-tussles .. it'll all have to wait. I've got a long road ahead of me ..   

It's the little things you remember ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thirty years ago today I was trekking in the Himalayas and stopped at a hostel that had a short-wave radio. On the BBC World Service news that evening, I heard that the 'Desert Storm' Gulf War had started.

"I can't believe it," I said. "That's my friend, reading the news!" And so it was. My pal, who now works for the Financial Times, was the newsreader that fateful day in January '91. Doesn't sound so special now but, back then, to hear my friend's voice when I was half-way up a mountain range in Nepal was amazing.

By 1992 I was in New Hampshire, where I photographed this 'Desert Storm' train set in a shop window.

It's the little things you remember ..

 

 

A world of difference ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a thirtieth birthday present to myself, I bought an airline ticket and took off on a six-month 'Round-the-World' back-packing trip ..

 It began on the sixth of January, 1991 ..

Exactly thirty years on and I'm living in a completely different world, one in which that dream is now an impossibility. No-one can go anywhere, anymore! The Covid pandemic's got us all in its grip, and even poor old STA travel, with whom I booked my ticket, has ceased trading because of it ..

I was going to call this blog 'The opposite of lockdown' because, flying off from Heathrow at the start of that trip, I'd never felt such freedom in my entire life. Today, people can't even step outside their front doors ..

I'm not writing about my trip to show off, I'm simply marking an amazing personal anniversary and thanking my lucky stars I was to be able to fulfill my dream. How fortunate I am to have such fabulous memories ..

Covid is never going to be a fabulous memory for today's thirty year olds. Here's hoping that their world - and ours - will open up again soon .. 

(Ps: If you're interested, this picture was taken in Moorea, the island across from Tahiti. I've always been fascinated by the 'Mutiny on the Bounty', and the inlet on my right is where they shot some of the Anthony Hopkins' film version.)

 

Knock it on the head ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The late and lovely Duke of Westminster, about to get clonked on the head with a hammer. At least, that's what it looks like, in one of the weirdest PR photographs I think I ever took.

Years and years later I have no idea why I was taking it - something about a charity helping people, surprise, surprise - and I think this old chap may have helped to build the shed, for some reason. All I know is that - because it is so corny - the shot had stuck in my mind and I was delighted when I found it again in that 'old box of negatives'.

It's New Year's Eve, and I'm not going to do all that 'looking forward' stuff that one's supposed to do at this time of year. No, I'm going to take a leaf out of our little dog's book and simply live for the moment. Let's just all enjoy what we've got and who we've got, if we have someone.

Happy New Year, everybody! 

And 2020? Let's just knock it on the head ..

Time for the children ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm still trawling through a big box of old negatives, with some great memories coming back to light.

This morning I found this one ..

After the disaster of Chernobyl in the mid 1980s, a group of children from the town were brought over to Manchester for a holiday. It was then that I took a picture of this delightful little girl, with her cute 'hat' and her beautiful smile. She'll now be nudging forty years old.

Everything's so fleeting in this life and I don't know where I'm going with this blog other than to say 'Merry Christmas' to everybody, and hope you cherish what you've got.

Peace, love, vodka .. 

Beat that bug ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's twenty-one years since the world was battling with another 'bug' that threatened to take over the planet.

The Millenium Bug.

It was a major worry, with everyone being told that their computers could crash and the world would go to gerbil shit ..

It never happened!

The only thing that changed was that I made a few bob out of shooting PR photographs to promote awareness of the possibility. I had to visit all sorts of businesses with a selection of 'Millenium Bug' material - including the four foot high cardboard bug in the 'pub' picture - and plonk it into my shots to get the message across. Interesting to note that, in December 1999, I was still shooing film. No computer crash was ever going to cause my photographs to disappear!

I can only hope that the 'other' bug is consigned to history as quickly ..

 

 

Hello Dad ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's got to be the biggest cliché in photography but, yesterday, I literally spotted a box on top of my shelves and wondered 'What on earth's in there.'

Lots of wonderful negatives .. that's what was in there!

Family shots, street scenes, pictures I'd forgotten I'd ever taken. Snaps I took in the office at my first newspaper and shots taken during an eight-week block release at Sheffield College in 1981.

Shots like this, too, of my Dad in 1978. I used to share a flat with him and would rope him in to 'model' every time I wanted to try out a lens or some other gizmo.

I happen to be listening to the radio as I write this blog and, of all things, a song has just come on that he used to sing all the time. Cliché, coincidence? Probably both of the above but I definitely felt he was watching down on me this morning ..  

 

 

 

My latest book ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what did you do during the latest lockdown?

Well, I'm glad you asked. I wrote my next book, that's what I did.

And, do you know what, I already have something in common with the Man Booker prize winning novel, Shuggie Bain. Yes, I've been rejected .. already! Hurrah! Only 41 more rejections to go, now.

It's called Page 99, by Joe Bancroft and I've absolutely loved writing it. 85,000 words and a real dive into the world of a young press photographer on a local newspaper. (Where DO I get my ideas??)

So yes, now the fun begins, trying to find an agent that will take my work on board.

Don't worry, I'll still love you when I'm famous!!!

Forty-five quid ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 11th, 1978, the renowned newspaper tycoon Eddie Shah wrote me a letter. Ok, it was actually his secretary, but he did sign it, so that counts! The basis of the correspondence was this: he was offering me a job with Messenger Group Newspapers. I'd got a job as a press photographer, at just turned 18 years of age. 

I was in! ..

That letter changed my life. I still have it, stuck in one of my many scruffy old scrapbooks ..

"Dear Mr. O'Neill, we are pleased to offer you the post .. "

Magic words, and amazing to think of the places and people and occasions they've allowed me to witness over the ensuing forty-two years. On my first day in the job - the first day - I had to photograph the captain of Manchester United! Thank you, Eddie Shah, for giving me that chance, so long ago ..

And hey, it gets better. That dream job, an ambition from the age of thirteeen, a job I'd have happily done for nothing .. he threw in forty-five quid a week as well ..