surrey | Chilled at Sunset

Where does the time go as I cannot believe it’s been three months since my last post!

However, I’m so pleased and proud of my dear cousin Duncan who is holding his first photographic exhibition ‘Our Generation’ at The Lightbox Gallery, Woking, Surrey.

He is so creative and artistic in many mediums and designed the Mad Mods logo and video for the exhibition. So, I want to share this exciting event which is running from the 31st July to 22nd August.

But one step back, as some of you may not be so familiar with the sub culture Mods who were the baby boomers of a post war Britain. The Mods started in London in the late 50’s with a small group of men called ‘Modernists’ because they listened to modern jazz. The Mods were about fashion, smart Italian style suits and the music was jazz, rhythm and blues, soul and ska. They drove Vespa and Lambretta scooters. And the girls wore slim capri pants, twin sets, A line skirts and just think Mary Quant and the mini shift dress and skirts. All so different from how their parents dressed! There was a revival of the Mods in the 70’s and it hasn’t gone away and today still has a loyal passionate following internationally.

Black and white images are presented as ‘fine art printed onto aluminium’ giving an amazing, stylish, industrial, contemporary look.

Mods are never shy in front of a camera so there is never a shortage of content and inspiration! With lockdowns finished (we hope) Mods can get back to socialising and their live music, so key to their lifestyle. The ‘Mad Mods and a Camera’ book, of over 200 pages, covers Duncan’s first year of his photographic journey documenting the Mod scene.

But how did it all begin, here’s Duncan’s Mad Mods story.

“It was Remembrance Sunday, November 8^th, 2015. I was heading back home with the Sunday papers and as I passed a local café I saw that a number of Mods with their scooters had congregated outside. By the time I got home I’d decided I was going to go back to photograph them. Don’t ask me why, but I knew I had to go back.

Bear in mind I hadn’t picked up a camera in years, so I was a bit nervous, to say the least! Outside the café, I asked if I could maybe take a few photos, not knowing what kind of reaction I’d get. Then ‘Smiler’, as he’s known, replied: “Of course mate, where do you want us?”

When I look back, that whole experience is an utter blur. What I do know is I was nervous as hell. After getting a handful of shots and saying polite goodbyes, I jumped back into my car and headed home. The big question was, had I captured anything worth showing?

Since then, my passion for photographing the Mod scene hasn’t stopped. I’ve photographed ride outs, weekenders and club nights– just about everything Mod. In fact I’m writing this after finishing a shoot with Paul Welsh, a suede head from Leeds, for a project called ‘Suited and Booted’. That’s what’s so great about this photographic journey – it’s introducing me to other subcultures, from suede heads to scooter boys and skinheads. And I’m learning from people inside the scene, which is so important.

“So, one day, when someone said to me “you must have enough photos to produce a book by now,” it got me thinking. And here it is. A book documenting the beginning of a photographic journey that started with that very first photo in Enfield in 2015.

So, a huge thank you to Mad Mods and Englishmen. If it wasn’t for the way they welcomed me that day, Mad Mods and a Camera might never have happened.

And who knows, one day I might even photograph Paul Weller. But that’s another story. Or even another book.”

“When I first planned this book it was going to be a simple celebration of how I started on my Mad Mods journey.

But almost a year after that day in Enfield, I started on another, much shorter journey. It was 1st October 2016, the first day I ever heard the word Glioblastoma.

Glioblastoma is an invasive, fast-growing primary brain tumour with one of the worst survival rates of all cancers. In the UK, around 3000 people are diagnosed with Glioblastoma every year. That’s why every single penny from the sale of this book will go towards The National Brain Appeal to support the pioneering work that my brother’s consultant, Dr Paul Mulholland is doing to find an effective treatment for Glioblastoma. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what my family went through with my brother. A wonderful husband. A loving father. A beautiful son. And my little Bro.”

I really hope you can visit Mad Mods and a Camera ‘Our Generation’ at The Lightbox. If you would like to purchase this fabulous book to support the National Brain Appeal, please e-mail madmodsandacamera@gmail.com or contact me through my blog.

Thank you.

“It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt

The funny thing about dreams is that sometimes they are just that, dreams.

We had a dream to retire to Spain in the sun and where we would get more bang for our buck. So, we bought a beautiful cortijo and off we went! It was pretty idyllic and we were lucky to meet some fantastic people who have become good friends. We’ve had so many funny Spanish adventures as recorded in this blog and throughout that time Brexit was never in our sights until it happened and uncertainty crept into our lives and we decided to sell our house. We sold it within six months after expecting it to take at least a year and then rented an apartment on a golf complex until the Brexit situation became clearer but it still hasn’t!

And now 2020 is happening, a year none of us will ever forget. Many people’s plans and dreams put on hold or changed. Are we still planning to buy another property in Spain, may be? When we told friends of our big decision to go back to England, one of them pointed out to us that “you don’t have the same dream every night and so why shouldn’t you have a different dream!” So, here we are, currently back in England and feeling sometimes a little like Spain was just that, a dream.

We’ve moved back into our apartment which is in a lovely setting by the river Thames in Chertsey, Surrey. After years of having our property rented out, we now have repairs and decorating to keep us busy and from missing our Spanish lifestyle. Soon we will be ready to sell it fingers crossed etc etc in these weird times and buy our next house!

Meanwhile, we also have ‘project Charlie’ our nervous German Shepherd dog! His whole little life has been turned upside down, difficult for normal dogs, let alone Charlie. He has left behind his girlfriend, Aura, his neighbours, Ellie, Brando and Saba and his training classes. He’s left behind sunny warm walks, beach walks in the winter sun and generally a chilled dog’s life! I sometimes wish he could tell us what he thinks now seeing lots of people (his biggest fear), loads of traffic (he hates cars), even more cyclists and joggers (on a good day he’ll ignore!), rain, muddy paws and no garden. Thank goodness, just a two minute walk away are open fields where he can run and chase sticks, not that he ever brings them back!

All this is on top of a boring nine hour drive and overnight stay in Santander before catching the ferry!

Right now, I feel a bit like a foreigner in my own country, to be honest. Setting up utility accounts and new internet supplier (2 week wait!) has assured 100% frustration levels! I’ve been on intimate terms with automated robots who “would like to direct my call to the right person” or on a couple of occasions to a person who mimics a robot and has no common sense! The recorded message from one company apologised in advance for any background noise involving children, animals and clinking of tea cups ” in these difficult times while staff work from home” What I do know, is that overall these companies aim is to get the customer to do everything (their job?) online. But with internet access only on our mobiles it has made me feel like an uneducated tech alien with very fat fingers on a small keypad completing endless forms! Hey, I wasn’t going to be defeated and nor was Steve, who outsmarted our two-month old Samsung Smart TV which thought it was still in Spain for a few days!

However, the runner up, yes only the runner up, in my tech frustration charts is the Health Centre. After one hour, one green tea and one strong coffee, I completed both our registration forms which gave a link to an NHS app so we could make appointments online. Great and I downloaded the app on our mobiles and booked a video appointment for Steve later in the day. Guess what ….. it didn’t happen. So, I called the Health Centre and the NHS app isn’t actually linked to them! You couldn’t make it up but all was resolved with a good old fashion telephone conversation.

Well, I was all ready to publish this post as we had gone live with WI-FI and then Saturday happened. So, the winner of my frustration charts is my dear friend Alexa Echo. Steve reluctantly unpacked her, he just doesn’t see the need for this gadget, a waste of time and money! Anyway, I amended the app details with new UK phone number ….. Hello Alexa! She replied Hola! and continued in her perfect Spanish to tell me she couldn’t connect to the WI-FI. That’s probably as she thought she was still in Spain with the TV! One and a half hours on the phone to the Amazon Alexa helpdesk, explaining the problem to four different people and Alexa simply refusing to give up her Spanish, they finally sorted the problem. Now we happily say good morning to each other in English!

Our 14-day quarantine has now finished, so, our English adventure can really start!!!

Chilled at Sunset in Chertsey