- Autumn: The Camera Club
by Steve Wells
A series of memoirs in which our oldest member, Sir Reginald Bread-Basket, talks about his memories of photography in the early days. (As revealed to Steve Wells over a glass of fine vintage claret fermented exclusively from the elderberry trees which line the south facing wall of the kitchen garden at Falling Plate Hall).
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"Did I ever tell you about the 'Loose Chippings Camera Club'?... No! Then fill your glass and I'll tell you about it."
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You may think that you know the Cotswolds fairly well, but I doubt if any or you have visited the small market town of Loose Chippings. Situated as it is at the end of one of those roads which the Ordnance Survey have never, in their infinite wisdom, found need to colour, it does not attract tourists. The village is unspoilt; exactly what tourists say they are looking for. Whether they would like it If they found it is, however, open to question. In my day there were no drains and electricity had yet to find its way over the hill. The village was small. The only public house, the Red Cow, had to brew its own beer as no brewer's dray had ever found its way up the winding road, over the narrow hump-backed bridge across the river and, finally, to the hairpin bend which leads into the main street.
During the Summer we took photographs, at least we said we took photographs. The lack of any entries for the club competitions suggested that maybe people had other things on their minds. Anyway, when the leaves turned red and the wind started to blow distinctly cold instead of lukewarm, the Loose Chippings Camera Club used to meet in the small back room of the Red Cow. There were larger rooms available; the Temperance Chapel was quite prepared to allow its meeting room to be used but with obvious conditions attached. The club being what it was the alternative albeit cramped accommodation at the Red Cow was considered preferable.
A typical meeting started at seven o'clock with Alf, chairman of the club and landlord of the Red Cow, discovering yet again, and to his unending surprise, that tonight was a meeting night. Invariably he would be found asleep in front of the parlour fire with his red spotted handkerchief over his face. Betty, Alf's wife, would rush in to wake him. Alt would insist that she was wrong and that the meeting was next week. Eventually she would prevail and, about half an hour later, the members would start to arrive. Alf would then express indignant surprise and would ask why they had called an extra meeting without informing him, after all, he was the Chairman, wasn't he? Betty would reassure him that he was indeed the Chairman and, thus mollified, he would lead the way to the back room.
The club tried to encourage outside speakers, but few had ever arrived. Indeed some, having started the journey to Loose Chippings, were never seen again by mortal men. The typical evening, then, consisted of a few pints of Alf's admirable beer followed by an impromptu talk by one of the members.
On one occasion Alf decided to show some of his own photographs. Of course, in these modern days you are probably used to prints with deep blacks and clear crystal whites. In Alf's case, however, the tonal range ran all the way from a subtle mud colour to a slightly less subtle lighter mud. It was said that he developed them in best bitter and fixed them in gin. If an image was visible it was a surprise; if it was identifiable it was almost a miracle. I believe that Alf only had one set of prints and that he used them for every talk. If he was talking about churches, then a particular brown smudge was the interior of Ely Cathedral; if he was talking about cats it would become a particularly subtle rendering of the coat of a Burmese. On one occasion, I remember, it became the seafront at Brighton. That led to a great argument; one of the other members, who was born on the south coast, thought it looked more like Worthing.
One week Alf took it into his head that if we were going to have a competition then we really had better have a judge; and if they were going to invite a judge they had better make sure he arrived. So it was that Professor Hamish McArty, a great authority in photography, modern art and scotch whisky, was invited. Alf and I set out at about ten o'clock in the morning in my brand new Austin 7 convertible and arrived back just in time for the meeting. The professor had travelled in the front seat next to me, but Alf had been squashed up behind. There isn't much room in an Austin!
The judge started conventionally enough. You know the kind of thing; everything scored 17, 18 or 19 and the only real comment was along the lines of "Why don't you cut two inches off the top". We didn't mind; we were all waiting for one of Alf's pictures to come up. Eventually, there it was in all its glory! Tawny brown on a kind of chocolate base with streaks of fawn running through it. It was called "Rain outside my kitchen window."
The professor stared at it for a long time. "This is going to be good", we thought. "He'll probably explode; maybe he'll have a fit and tear the picture into shreds."
The professor turned round and spoke. "At last', he said, "an image which breaks the bounds of conventional seeing. A conception which takes photography out of the rut of representation into the world of true art."
We stared dumbfounded. Maybe he was being sarcastic! We started to snigger.
"Innocent fools", said the professor. "Can't you see the worth of this magnificent image? It has to score twenty, and that is not enough."
We heard much later that the professor had bought the photograph. Alf wouldn't reveal how much for, but it was enough to buy a new camera. His pictures still came out muddy brown but from then on Alf assured us that this was just what he had intended all along!
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