John Claridge’s Darker Side
Photographer John Claridge sent me this set of pictures entitled “East London, A Darker Side And Objects of Affection,” yet when I asked him which of the images referred to darkness and which to veneration, he became evasive. Justly celebrated for his subtle appreciation of tonal contrast in photography, John sees darkness and light as inextricable from each other in life too.
For John, these images are tokens of the East End that he knew and of the East End that made him. They are plates from an unwritten autobiography. When, at fifteen years old, John went up west to work in advertising at McCann Erickson, the college graduates would not speak to him at first, dismissing him as being from the “wrong side of the tracks.” But John refused to apologise for his origins and quickly discovered that he was accepted by creative figures at the agency such as the designer Robert Brownjohn who recognised his nascent talent.
Many of the objects in these pictures are still in John’s possession today, carried all these years as talismans of his youthful emotional universe in the fifties and sixties. Yet they also speak of the violence of that society, a violence which John witnessed and knew personally, but does not sentimentalise. “It’s a world I flirted with, but film delivered me to another life,” John admitted, choosing his words carefully and looking back with a clear-eyed gaze. It was his and our good fortune that – out of the variety of implements portrayed here – for John the camera proved to be the most eloquent means of self-expression.
The Beginning -“My first serious camera when I was fifteen, bought by hire purchase. I still have it, but it’s resting now.”
Once Upon a Time in the East End – “A Magnum twelve gauge shotgun laid upon the grill in an East End St.”
Eldorado & The Dark Corner – “My first car was a V8 Ford Pilot, but an American car was the most desirable and I photographed a friend’s Eldorado Cadillac on a street off the Highway.”
Zip Gun – “At school, we used to get hold of toy guns and use them to create real guns. You use small ball bearings, pack it with gunpowder and it fires. It was what we did.”
The Starter – “I found a razor in the street once. There had been a fight and it was left behind. I remember seeing Teddy Boys in the market buying razors with mother of pearl handles, and they’d put them in their top pocket to see which matched their clothes best. Their opening line was, ‘Do you want to start something?'”
This is Not a Negative – “I used to carry a flick knife, it wasn’t a negative characteristic, it was my life. You learnt to survive.”
How Things Grow
The Unknown Boxer – “My father was a bare-knuckle fighter but he was also the gentlest man you could imagine.”
The Hammers – “The symbol for West Ham , the hammers refer to ship building. I used to compete in athletics for West Ham and I still have my badge.”
Rolling Thunder -“I crashed my bike and got smashed up really badly. I broke an arm, a leg, cracked three vertebrae, broke eight ribs, one rib punctured a lung and I was in a coma for a week. But when I got out of hospital, my mates put me on a bike and made me take the same bends again. It was the biggest adrenalin rush of my life. Motorbiking was an important part of growing up, and I still ride a Ducati 916 and a Harley.”
Stewed or Jellied – “Obviously, I adore eels, stewed or jellied. We’d go on holiday to Southend and eat fresh seafood, so I thought I’d send this postcard back to everyone.”
This is NOT the wrong side – “When I started at McCann Erickson at fifteen, the college graduates wouldn’t speak to me – I was told I was from the wrong side of the tracks.”
Photographs copyright © John Claridge
You may like to read these other stories of the darker side of the East End
Billy Frost, the Krays’ Driver
Sammy McCarthy, Flyweight Champion
or take a look at these other pictures by John Claridge
Along the Thames with John Claridge
At the Salvation Army with John Claridge
A Few Diversions by John Claridge
Signs, Posters, Typography & Graphics
Views from a Dinghy by John Claridge
In Another World with John Claridge
A Few Pints with John Claridge
Some East End Portraits by John Claridge
Sunday Morning Stroll with John Claridge
Just Another Day With John Claridge
At the Salvation Army in Eighties
John Claridge’s Boxers (Round One)
John Claridge’s Boxers (Round Two)
John Claridge’s Boxers (Round Three)
John Claridge’s Boxers (Round Four)
John Claridge’s Boxers (Round Five)
John Claridge’s Boxers (Round Six)
John Claridge’s Boxers (Round Seven)
These grave, emphatic images have so many resonances for me. The first being simply that my first ‘good’ camera was a Pentax and I loved it almost viscerally.
Many of the other photographs are of a world that Tony partly inhabited. His images of pubs were often of quiet gentle afternoons, but he also lived in a world less gentle. I remember Tony explaining to me, when a violent fight broke out in a pub we were in, that fights were much less scary if you were a part of them, rather than a spectator on the side. (But I never tested out his theory – I remained resolutely on the side! )
Tony also rode motorbikes – and also came off them. I wish Tony and John Claridge had known each other. I think they might have been mates.
Very dark, indeed!
Classic dark accoutrements !
Thanks.
I love the dark undertone of both the photos, and the man behind them > Fast bikes, V8 Fords, Teddy Boys, and Street Fights. Things may or may not have progressed, either way the old east end sounds like a fascinating place regardless.
I particularly like the picture of the Eldorado Cadillac on what looks like Pennington St.
Very evocative stuff. Many remind me of my father’s ‘office’, which was filled with exotic weapons, many of which had been seized from particularly vicious customers visiting the family pub.
A dark collection indeed but imbued with the Claridge sense of beauty shining from within. You are a wonderfully gifted photographer John and I wish I had 1% of your drive and talent!
Its the shot of the Pentax that is so evocative to me John – it was the first camera I was introduced to at the beginning of my career before really becoming involved with the Photographic world.
I have always loved the amazing stillife studies that you have done as they are so personal
to you and there is always a very emotive story behind each image which really says it all.
I hope that these images are being selected for one of your books as I would love to have reference of them for all time.
Nice to take us along. Surprising us with each picture. Beautiful.
Excellent as ever
Really brilliant pictures. Very evocative of the old East End. Having just looked up John Claridge’s website after reading this, I’d be intrigued to see some of his advertising photography work for McCann-Erickson. He admits he learned his trade in the ‘golden age’ of photography and advertising in the 60s, which made me think of the Mad Men TV series. Gentle Author, it’d be great if you could show us John Claridge’s advertising photos – I’m intrigued to see how he married his dark vision with the often ‘sunny’ demands of selling products.
The main thing is, you survived!
Stark, dangerous, beautiful images.
Thanks.
AT
Truely dark and evocative images. This is an East End that I have never known, it is so different to what it is now. You really had to survive. A fascinating part of London’s history.
Blimey, Guv! Strong stuff! Good job I haven’t had me breakfast…
Good thing they didn’t have metal detectors in those days… I love the wrong side of the tracks image.I was reading John’s comments about the making of real guns from toy guns and was thinking “Why in my day,children didn’t have access to gunpowder!” But then I remembered my own childhood and we were always unpicking shotgun cartridges to create explosive devices. I really like the ambivalence of the images-are they softened by time,or they as scarey as today’s images of gang culture are?
OK I’ll get my coat
Another series of great photos John, postcards of cut and gutted eels – a winner!
Only getting round to seeing these Pictures John. Powerful as always. Love the Razor image and the Pentax. My first serious camera was a Halina 35x bought second hand by my father for me. You must have a barn filled with memorabilia as you seem never to have thrown anything away. G
So now we know! . . . from the inheritance of the “Darker Side of the East End” and its associated “Objects of Affection” (which is which we sometimes have to ask ourselves!)
emerged a JC lens that portrayed an often austere but always inherently honest view of the world, be it his commercial work (a refusal to give in to saccharine commercial pressures) or his portrayal of the world at large in his editorial or published work (visit his website, http://www.johnclaridgephotographer.com to see for yourself or order one of his books)
. . . posted by “a middle class graduate” who, since the 1970s, unlike some unenlightened contemporaries, has long respected JC as a friend and multi-talented professional.
gang warfares
as rife as ever between
dividing postcodes
layers of old East End survive
hidden from gentrification
sprite
One can only comment on the talent of JC on making these images of some”naughty” objects look stunning!
Ah! Tottenham Royal, Orchid [ did they know it means bollocks? [latin]] Purley. Jive – zoot suits, slim jim’s, woven suede crepe soles. Band only allowed to play ONE ‘ Be-Bop ‘ number in the evening – Ours was ‘Lemon Drop’ – Dizzy Gillespie – Aah Bop Booodly Be Da – Earl Bostic, Sarah Vaughn [In yer dreams kid & she was] Stan Kenton band … The razors on the racecourse – all taped up but the top eighth inch the bookies making off with the bag in haste … The ‘Malts’ in charge of prostitution through Soho to Bayswater. Pals of mine off the fairs Don Brute & Johnny Angel, Don had the brass tap while Johnny carried a shard of broken saucer – just in case. The other one was the flat cap with razor blades around the brim. This way before Odd Job or anything else Q dream’t up for Bond.
As we didn’t have that serpent in Eden – Television, may it burn in hell, it was all very direct experience. The Saturday dressing ritual, sacrosant … The amazing D.A’s [Ducks Arse] & Boston
[ Tony Curtis] at the hair ‘saloon’ … ‘ Anything for the weekend, Spunky’? Forever checking it with the comb at the ready. Local Bad Boys , ‘Piggy’ Frimley & ‘Billy The Yid’ … The Giant Lanegan cutting through to the bar with ‘Hoppy’ a near dwarf market trader coiffed and dressed to the nines on his
bulging arm, as Hoppy beat the heads below with his [small] wooden leg. When Lanegan had set Hoppy on the long bar he would turn with a deep dark stare, pump up his biceps and split! the seams
of his shirt …….. Whap! Follow that … Zip Guns? Don’t leave home without it. Nobby near killed three of us at start of typo class as his went of and mashed a corner of the blackboard. Sorry he said,
didn’t know it was going to do that. I notice the shotgun is a nasty cheap Belgian or Italian pump
action … Mind though we did store a lovely little skeleton stock .22 that broke down to little parts
of innocuous metal, plus a more serious item – for a [dear] friend of ours, while he was applying for HMSS, later became a watercolour artist of great quality. This was sometime later when we woke up in the early 60’s. I swapped my Pentax for a Leica 3A Sonnar lens on a Cook & Perkins graphite mount …. what a beauty … low light soft blacks with laser definition …. You know – What larks Pip
old Chap … Mudlarks on the foreshore low tide of time gone by and ever sharp present. the one of the Caddy is genius …… Filth had Wolseley’s and Snipes – with a bell on top …. Liverpool wit ‘ Why are cops like banana’s?’ ‘ ‘Coz they’re yellow, bent & hang round in bunches’ – Well some of them were all of that pinpoint comment – Not any more thank God … we’re civilized now….. still have to stay sharp …. Very nice JC – Best of Times – not Worst of Times – Sense of vitality & clear identity then.
Good feeling to recall – Mono Clarity in the age of Surround Sound. Most refreshing.
Marvellous images, very sinister.
I was intending to say ‘Moody’, except that I have your sublime portrait of James standing right by my record collection and I didn’t want to confuse.
Someone once asked Anna Pavlova what she thought about when she danced. She replied: ‘if I could tell you, I wouldn’t have to dance’. Snap.
Best to you both.
L
Fascinating.
When is the next episode due?
D.
Noir is the genre of John’s work but out of the darkness comes light.