Courage, endurance & defiance

As regular readers may already be aware, this year marks the 50th anniversary of esteemed photojournalist Tom Stoddart’s entry into an industry on which he has left an indelible mark.

I last saw Tom at the AP Awards in February, where he received a standing ovation while he picked up the Exceptional Achievement in Photography award. At the time, Covid-19 was pretty much an abstract threat in the UK. We had little idea how many things would change and how vastly. We’d spoken about the book he’d been working on, and over the past few months I’ve found myself hoping it wouldn’t be another casualty of an industry all but decimated by the virus.

Luckily, Tom’s been ploughing on and the launch date is almost upon us. In my mind, the book has been in the works for a year or so, but Tom would argue that it’s been in the making for the best part of the past half-century. Speaking to him remotely – as pretty much all interviews are conducted these days – from his home in the North East, he tells me, ‘I wanted to do something