Man With A Pram
In the early 1960s I remember using the wheels from old prams and push chairs to make a ‘trolley.’ All you needed was two sets of wheels nailed to a plank of wood. The front wheels were connected to a seperate piece of wood which steered the trolley (in theory) in the direction you wanted to go. There were no breaks and motion was secured by pulling your trolley up a pavement on an incline and letting gravity do it’s work at the top of the incline. Trolleys were a health and safety nightmare but great fun.
I remember thinking of my days on a trolley as I observed old men wandering around the East End with a battered trolley collecting useful scrap that had been discarded.
‘Man with a pram’ (mixed media on paper) is based on a photograph I took of one such man in Toynbee Street in the East End (see below).
Around East London (20)
Window portrait
This mixed media portrait was based on the photograph (see below) of a woman looking through the window of a fast food outlet on Bishopsgate opposite Liverpool Street Station. After eating her meal she decided to stay for a smoke and keep warm.
World Streets (26)
Centenerian Portrait
I was delighted to meet this centenerian woman in Sylhet, Bangladesh in 1992. She was the great grandmother of a friend. I photographed her in her garden and was impressed with her energy as she was still looking after the plants she’d nurtured over many years. This image is a photomontage of a painting of her and the original portrait photograph. I wanted to emphasize her stunning eyes.
Around Liverpool (46)
Digital Exclusion
This illustration was used to illustrate an article on ‘digital exclusion’ for the manifesto of the Merseyside Pensioners Association (MPA). Older people for a variety of reasons are often excluded from the digital world many of us take for granted. The MPA campaigns to ensure that older people are not excluded from mainstream society.
