I for my sins left school and started my career as a clerk for Auctioneers and Valuers,
very boring job, and in the mean time I ventured back to Moulsham School to take Night
Classes as they were then called in Photography which was of great interest to me.
Here I re-encountered the SAS teacher who as it turned out was to be my mentor and
helped me a great deal to find the right direction in my life. Who at 15 years old knows
what he or she really wants to do in life, I learnt more of life between 15 and 21 than
at any other time. Mr. Anderson, for that was his name, would prove a great help to
me and introduced me to Gus Edwards at The Essex Record Office, who was an
amazing character and whose pipe always seemed to have a drip right on the end,
just waiting to drop.
Well I left the Auctioneers and joined The Essex Record Office, and after a few years
a photographic unit was established which I was put in charge of. In the meantime, I
was attending the Market Road Technical School studying photography in more depth,
Mr. Bloodworth was our lecturer and had taught us well. He was a Police Photographer
of the old school whereby photographs were to be an exact replica of that moment in
time, pin sharp from edge to edge, showing full detail of the subject, he claimed you
could not capture atmosphere on film.
By this time I was experimenting with all sorts of new films and techniques, and one
person on that course was Mr. Davis who ran the Photographic Department of Bellemys
Chemist, in Tindal Square where I would spend many a Saturday afternoon chewing the
fat over new techniques, if not I would meet up with my mates at the new Orpheus
Coffee Bar that had opened in London Road to discuss where we would go that night,
the Cricketers in Southend or maybe The Elm Hotel at Leigh.
The deaths in January 1959 of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper in a
plane crash, left the music world reeling - and effectively brought to an end the first
phase of rock ‘n’ roll. This vacuum was not to last however, what with the ‘twist’
and skiffle groups enjoying huge popularity, and Cliff and Elvis changing their image,
music and the youth culture had seemed somewhat listless - but not for long.
No band has been written about as widely, or who’s influences nor indeed achieved
as much as The Beatles. The first half of the Sixties was theirs, and with that came
world domination.
The availability of imported US records into Liverpool docks played a major part in
the Mersey sound breaking in the first place. Without seamen bringing in those ‘so’
important records who knows what might have been!
By 1963, everyone craved for the neat new suits, distinctive haircuts and the lifestyle
of the Fab Four. Now, greased back quaffs and DA’s of the 50’s rockers were gone
“Swinging London” had emerged with the tremendous hype of Carnaby Street and
Kings Road - suddenly we had arrived!
The insatiable appetite for new music was immeasurable, which could be paralleled
by the youth of today up and down the country. It came from the new dance halls lit
by shafts of pulsating ultra violet light, these sounds would change the face of the
music industry forever, these were to become the Golden Years of LIVE Music, when
bands really did perform live without all that electronic wizardry that seems to be the
norm today. Three Vox AC30 Amps a Watkins Copycat Echo, a set of drums, three
guitars and a HP Agreement guaranteed by your parents, you were up and running
and ready to ‘Rock and Roll’. The laser light disco was still in the future.