30 years; who would have thought it? Not only that, a wonderful 30 years and counting!
I’m sure I penned something similar for the first decade of BRM, but a few ‘repetitions’ won’t go amiss here, if the reader is sympathetic. I received a phone call, right out of the blue,and articles for the new publication. Would I? I’d not long abandoned teaching after over 20 years at ‘the chalk face’ and had just started my own business as a photographer/model-maker/writer; talk about serendipity! Michael invited me over to Bourne from my then-home in Wolverhampton to discuss his plans and my role with regard to BRM. What a lovely man, and we formed an instant friendship, as I did with David. He insisted upon nothing less than the highest-quality medium-format colour transparencies; could I provide them? Yes, because, with the aid of a bank loan, I’d invested in some excellent second-hand Mamiya camera equipment. It was an entirely ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ camera, had the ergonomic dynamics of a couple of bricks, but boy could it take a picture! My first commission was to drive down to Portsmouth, photograph Midsomer Norton, stay overnight at a B&B, drive back to Wolverhampton early next morning to arrive at Colab prior to 10.00 am so that the films could be developed, collect them from the lab’ after 4.30 pm, check them, then get the trannies over to Bourne by Special Delivery by the next day, so that the first issue could go to press within the week. Talk about a tight deadline! After that, it was layout commission after layout commission, plus reviews and articles - as much as I could supply. My dear old Ford Sierra had travelled to the moon by the end of the century!
