Photography

During my years as a professional photographer I became, at one point, a ‘stringer’ for the Birmingham Post & Mail. i.e., whenever the paper called in a story in my area I would take the pictures and put the film on the next train or bus to Birmingham.

On this occasion it appeared that the driver of a battery egg firm had dumped a load of unwanted eggs onto the local rubbish tip. During the warm summer night the eggs had begun to hatch and a passing villager spotted this. The alarm was raised and the villagers struggled all through the night to save the chicks.

I arrived in the early hours to photograph some extremely filthy, but mightily proud, villagers and the half-dozen chicks that had actually survived.

I swung into action, photographed the villagers using my brand new all-singing all-dancing flashgun; the very latest in flash technology.

Then I came to photograph the chicks, placed in a lovingly prepared straw lined cardboard box. I leaned over the box, focused on one of the little balls of yellow fluff and pressed the button. BANG! When I reopened my eyes all I could see through the viewfinder was a mess of blood, yellow fur and glittering glass; my flash had exploded.

I stepped away from the box and one by one the villagers filed past like mourners at a funeral, peered into the box and then at me.

Now I have never seen a lynch mob, but I’ve got a damned good idea of what it would look like and it was looking at me.

Having killed the story, literally, and wasted all their night long effort it seemed like a good time to leave…and I did with mumbled apologies and much haste.

I’ve never been back to that village since, but I have it on good authority that their Guy Fawkes looks suspiciously like me…every year!