Comments on: Outtakes Of A Press Photographer

By: Peter day

Peter day — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 21:45:41 +0000

The cork shop was called we pleasants , I have no idea why as it was owned by my grandfather,Walter Day and his brother John. They ran the shop until the early seventies I think and it was like something from Dickins. I remember the huge knife that he used to make the cork flowers with. There was a celler that had cork in it from before the war and a model of (I think) St. Paul’s in the window. It’s hard to imagine now.

By: Flo T

Flo T — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 20:43:23 +0000

I used to manage the Castle in the 1980s , it’s unique in that it was also a pawnbrokers although I never had to implement it. Because of its uniqueness when Prince Andrew and Fergie got married Nipon tv came and filmed it for a piece while also filming the wedding.

By: Marcia Howard

Marcia Howard — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 20:01:56 +0000

Well done to Libby Hall. Fabulous and unique images, especially as it was fairly unusual for a woman to become a press photographer, or even manage to get half a foot in the door back then. She reminds me of Doreen Spooner, a trailblazer who became Fleet Street’s first female photographer. I have Doreen’s fascinating autobiography from when she worked during the late 50s at the Daily Mail with a friend of mine. My friend is now in her late 80s, and Doreen by then in her 90s, only passed away a year or so ago. Many of the iconic photos that made front pages, i.e Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies in the pub at lunchtime on the first day of the Profumo trial; and Neil Kinnock falling over in the surf, is to name just two.

By: Libby Hall

Libby Hall — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 15:28:37 +0000

It has been lovely for me to share, thanks to the Gentle Author, these photographs.

To reply to some comments. I didn’t know Iain Sinclair at the bookstalls in Farringdon Road but later I often used to stand next to him in Kingsland High Road as we looked at books there.

I do remember the cork shop in Farrington Road with its intriguing window display, Sadly I never went inside. I wish I had!

I have Googled it and now know the Castle, where we sometimes went for a drink, used to be a pawn brokers.

How nice that Paul Loftus remembers Clapton Station then. Oh my – there were even waiting rooms – with coal fires in them in the winter!

Ros – that is a pot of glue. I think I was pasting captions onto the back of prints for the files. What a mess my desk was!

I thought others might be interested to read what a local historian wrote to me about the Clapton Station photographs.

Your photograph of the eastbound and westbound platforms of Clapton station capture beautifully the ambiance of the station which John Betjeman described when he visited the area in the 1950s.The wooden platform canopies with the distinctive pointed edges and the delicate filigree ironwork of the spandrels and the slim cast-iron columns with decorated capitals echo the designs for Liverpool Street Station by GER Chief Engineer Edward Wilson (1820-1877).

Betjeman used the station when he visited the Agapemonite Church in Clapton in the company of the son of the former leader of the sect which scandalised Victorian society.

Writing in The Spectator of 3 February 1956 he wrote “With a son of Smyth-Pigott I went to find where his father had lived. Only a cedar tree remained. The walled garden had become a garage and the site was occupied by modernistic flats. But the railway station, dear dark cavernous Great Eastern Clapton, is the same”.

Betjeman’s obvious affection for the station and its “dark cavernous” aspect is reinforced by being overlooked on the north side by the rear walls of Hornsey Chambers which were constructed as model dwellings for the working class in the 1880s by builder W.G. Hornsey of West Ham and which were moulded around the constrained corner site created by the path of the railway.

By: Ros

Ros — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 15:41:43 +0000

I love love love all these photos! All of them contain things of exquisite interest and some are also just beautiful in themselves, eg the patterns in the strong sunlight in the second pic of Clapton station. Look how close the flats are there to the station itself – perfect to have two people sitting outside one. Sunlight and shadow are beautifully used in other photos too. And look at the comparative emptiness of Liverpool station, and the two black figures including the stylishly dressed woman. How they conjure up remembrance of things past, many of which I’d completely forgotten. I remember the Empire confectionery shops on mainline stations, so many of the advertisements and their typefaces, and Booths gin, though I’d quite forgotten where it was made. And those wonderful bookstalls, apparently very much male preserves, Interesting that so many of the men carry sling bags, briefcases or shopping bags in which they can put their purchases. Thanks so much Libby, firstly for taking them and then for showing them to us now. What is in the bottle(?) on your desk I wonder with what may or may not be a straw sticking out?

By: Phil Maxwell

Phil Maxwell — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 19:45:42 +0000

Thanks for publishing these brilliant photographs and thanks to Libby Hall for taking them!

By: Pamela Traves

Pamela Traves — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 03:49:58 +0000

Love these pictures, espcially the book shops.????????

By: Jo G

Jo G — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 23:58:02 +0000

Thankyou so much for such besutiful and evocative photographs. The book barrows especially – I remember them in the 1980s, when I lived in Clerkenwell. Are there enough photos for a book?

By: Michael Hebbert

Michael Hebbert — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 21:13:19 +0000

The singer John Foreman was a regular around the Farringdon Rd stalls, picking up the collection of black-letter ballads that earned him the title of Broadsheet King. He can probably name most of the blokes in these wonderful photographs.

By: Ian Silverton

Ian Silverton — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 14:01:06 +0000

Loved seeing those pictures of the book sellers, in my time around there and abouts very few where to be seen, then it was only one, just before left none was to be seen, all around 1965 ish. My self never looked back only now you have been putting up pictures of my past life, thanks GA, brings back happy memoirs some not so when you see how poor we all where or so it seems. Keep safe London, its only the beginning of a long drawn out Saga of our future lives, where ever you live in this World.