In the Spring of 2000, the Photocopier left England to live in a caravan in the Netherlands. He took a lot of pictures before leaving and on arriving.
Back then, photographs were taken on a camera. Some turned out well, some didn’t. Some are of a Lancashire long gone, some of a Holland just discovered but now disappeared for ever.
What remains in these photocopies of photographs is the stasis, the time that never existed, the time that floated around not asking to be captured. That’s the time that stays with us when we see it again.
An A4 photocopy of photograph staken just after the Photocopier moved to the Netherlands. Treated with filters and adjustments on his ASUS laptop. FEBO, Pearle Opticians and terraces. Staples all. And all still here. But just not these ones.
An A4 photocopy of photographs taken just before and after the Photocopier moved to the Netherlands. Treated with filters and adjustments on his ASUS laptop. Abandoned promotional lorries in Dutch fields. Plastic coated netting surrounding a sump pit near Accrington Stanley, all now long gone.
An A4 photocopy of photographs taken just after the Photocopier moved to the Netherlands. Treated with filters and adjustments on his ASUS laptop. Fields and fish. Two notable aspects of the South Western Netherlands.
Let’s introduce one new thing by talking about another. Let’s not. Let’s do nothing, but stare at memories of the East Lancashire Moors. For what else is there to do? We can wander round places we have never ever been to, that’s what. Let’s enter the Memory Vortex.
A photograph (iphone7) of a photocopy of a PDF file of a scan of a freehand Indian ink drawing on paper. Here is a shepherd and a delivery truck. These are the Modern Times on the East Lancashire moors. This is what is going on there.
A photograph (iphone7) of a photocopy of a PDF file of a scan of a freehand Indian ink drawing on paper. Here is a model with an outsized vegetable and the ubiquitous abandoned bath. These are the Modern Times on the East Lancashire moors. This is what is going on there.
A photograph (iphone7) of a photocopy of a PDF file of a scan of a freehand Indian ink drawing on paper. Here is a Hen Harrier with an abandoned dwelling, a gnome and more modern rubbish. These are the Modern Times on the East Lancashire moors. This is what is going on there.
Let’s introduce one new thing by talking about another. Let’s not. Let’s do nothing, but stare at memories of the East Lancashire Moors. For what else is there to do? We can wander round places we have never ever been to, that’s what. Let’s enter the Memory Vortex.
A photograph (iphone7) of a photocopy of a PDF file of a scan of a freehand Indian ink drawing on paper. These are the Modern Times on the East Lancashire moors. This is what is going on there.
A photograph (iphone7) of a photocopy of a PDF file of a scan of a freehand Indian ink drawing on paper. Here is an owl and the detritus of modern life. And there is a blasted tree. These are the Modern Times on the East Lancashire moors. This is what is going on there.
There is good and there is evil. In between, somewhere, is the duck.
These words, spoken by Accrington artist and visionary Tim Whittaker, come back to haunt us in these ribald, brittle, stretched months of 2020 and 2021, where ghosts of the threshing floor rise to meet us.
These photocopies hark back to another, happier time and maybe presage a third.
We just need to locate the duck.
You have to act. Burn them, commune with their indolent, witless, stolid spirit. Or photocopy them endlessly to erase their presence.
Maybe you can draw on humanity’s creative commons to give you another answer. It’s what the internet is for.
I’m staying in my lane. To be precise, Hollins Lane. But that stops in Baxenden. Where then?
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting Accrington ring road, which expertly filleted a town that sat (thanks to the conjoining of Burnley and Blackburn Roads) on a perfect North-South, East-West axis.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting where Saint James’ Infants School once stood in Clayton le Moors. What fun we had in 1975.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting Accrington Pals Health Centre (NHS). A fitting tribute to the 11th (Service) Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment. It’s just up the road from where the New Era Youth Club was.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
There is good and there is evil. In between, somewhere, is the duck.
These words, spoken by Accrington artist and visionary Tim Whittaker, come back to haunt us in these ribald, brittle, stretched months of 2020 and 2021, where ghosts of the threshing floor rise to meet us.
These photocopies hark back to another, happier time and maybe presage a third.
We just need to locate the duck.
You have to act. Burn them, commune with their indolent, witless, stolid spirit. Or photocopy them endlessly to erase their presence.
Maybe you can draw on humanity’s creative commons to give you another answer. It’s what the internet is for.
I’m staying in my lane. To be precise, Hollins Lane. But that stops in Baxenden. Where then?
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depictingThe Grey Horse, Whalley Road. Not to be confused with the Greyhound down the road, where the Photocopier’s direct relatives were laid out after the Moorfield pit disaster sometime in the 1880s.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting the darts board in the Grey Horse Whalley Road, Accrington. Taken during a Christmas long ago.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting Accrington Globe Centre, once the Howard and Bullough “works” where most of Accrington’s youth ended up, lathing, turning and mucking about.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
There is good and there is evil. In between, somewhere, is the duck.
These words, spoken by Accrington artist and visionary Tim Whittaker, come back to haunt us in these ribald, brittle, stretched months of 2020 and 2021, where ghosts of the threshing floor rise to meet us.
These photocopies hark back to another, happier time and maybe presage a third.
We just need to locate the duck.
You have to act. Burn them, commune with their indolent, witless, stolid spirit. Or photocopy them endlessly to erase their presence.
Maybe you can draw on humanity’s creative commons to give you another answer. It’s what the internet is for.
I’m staying in my lane. To be precise, Hollins Lane. But that stops in Baxenden. Where then?
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting a bypass in Accrington. Like many in the North, local residents can say “I remember when it was all houses around here”.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting Accrington War Memorial. the Crown Green Bowling club is just round the back.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
An iphone 7 photograph of a photocopy of an iphone 4 photograph, depicting the bunger in The Grey Horse, Accrington. In spaces like these, Britain’s ruin is continually hatched.
It is time for action. It is time to find Tim Whittaker’s duck. To find the auguries for the duck, download and photocopy, and then set alight in obeisance to the deity of your choosing.
It is the only way to commune with a future England, whilst processing 70 years of a couch potato worldview, held together by Airfix glue.
When using a chafing dish (or similar vessel) please heed the words of Scorpio Murtlock. Appease the shades of your dwelling and burn laurel and alder before watching the copy of Accrington Pals Health Centre go up in smoke.
(Students of the photocopy will notice the role of the small circular cut out piece of paper, a refugee from some binding action. See it as a comet coming.
Where do we go and what do we do when we sleep? There is plenty of activity and sensations to document. And what of the space where #SleepLife happens, how do they change? This is one such document, of a space in Accrington that needs a new #SleepLife, and quietly suffered a temporary interregnum. It’s old one has ended.
An A4 photocopy of a pencil sketch of the Photocopier’s mother’s gardening shoes (which were moved to the bedroom from the hallway). And the wooden cabinet containing the antique cistern that heated the water for the Photocopier’s baths. The Photocopier has almost primal childhood memory of lowering himself into the bath at his parent’s house. And the attendant feeling of comfort the first few minutes of the bath gave him. Over time it became a ritual to immediately have a bath on returning to the family home. The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
An A4 photocopy of a sketch of the Photocopier’s mother’s make up bag (a tabby cat) sat atop a sheesham wood box (containing nothing) and in frot of a small pot cat ornament fixed to the wall, above an oak chest of drawers. The notes in felt tip refer to the photocopier’s fascination with the classical motif on his mother’s jewellery boxes. The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
An A4 photocopy of a pencil sketch of the ornaments and jewellery boxes to be found in the Photocopier’s mother’s bedroom. The swan vase was originally his aunt Marion’s (from the Bury branch of the family, long deceased) which, along with a similarly highly glazed vase depicting a highwayman, fascinated the Photocopier as a small child on trips to Bury. The pot jewellery box, with a relief showing some scene from classical myth (made in the East Midlands) were some of the longest standing items in his mother’s bedroom, being there from the early 1970s. The Photocopier had issues drawing this freehand. The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
An A4 photocopy of a quick sketch of the Photocopier’s mother’s bedroom with some cursory notes in felt tip. The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
An A4 photocopy of a quick pencil sketch of the bathroom door (with Staffordshire porcelain handle) and a highly glazed ceramic seal from the Gema ceramic company (which the Photocopier’s mother had a soft spot for). These two elements were the first thing that somehowcame to mind when trying to focus on the nocturnal bathroom visits. The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
Where do we go and what do we do when we sleep? There is plenty of activity and sensations to document. And what of the space where #SleepLife happens, how do they change? This is one such document, of a space in Accrington that needs a new #SleepLife, and quietly suffered a temporary interregnum. It’s old one has ended.
An A4 photocopy of a pencil sketch from a Polish film poster that somehow mutated into a bored – and aborted – take on TE Lawrence. One of the first drawings made after his mother’s death, the drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
An A4 photocopy of a pencil sketch of a pot ornament made by the Photocopier’s brother at infants school that was given to his mother. Indestructible and inscrutable, the glazed clay ornament – depicting a bird it according to family legend – has never left the window sill of his parents’ bedroom. The notes in pen document the time of death of the Photocopier’s mother, amongst other sensations and observations. The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
n A4 photocopy of a quick pencil sketch of the Photocopier’s mother’s bedside table (with wood-based lamp and the Photocopier’s personal effects strewn loosely upon it) and a battered Roberts digital radio. The radio was notorious in being too loud. The Photocopier’s late mother, who was an insomniac, would play the BBC World Service at high volume throughout the night, often to everyone else’s irritation. The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
An A4 photocopy of the Photocopier’s notes in felt tip. The photocopy that is pasted in the bottom right hand corner is from Wyndham-Lewis’s Vorticist Manifesto, “Blast” (1914). The drawing is in the Photocopier’s notebook of his nocturnal experiences whilst sleeping in his late mother’s bedroom, over Christmas and New Year 2019-20.
This post is the second in a series that was originally to be called a ‘Study in Scarlet’. Both titles are appropriate given where Albion finds herself in late October, 2019. Balm is given by way of some old comics that somehow passed down to the Curator by way of his father. Plus some altered photographs of West Yorkshire and pictorial catharsis.
“………………………………….It seems a humiliation
to let you go to your ships with our treasures
unfought—now you have come thus far
into our country. You must not get our gold
so softly. Points and edges must reconcile us first,
a grim war-playing, before we give you any tribute.”
A photograph of a photocopy of a children’s comic printed during the first Christmas of the Great War. The comic was the possession of the Curator’s father. If only all wars could be so simple. A salutary reminder too, that what happens in real life never gets into the press. The Curator draws a line at commenting on international negotiations.
A photograph of a photocopy on red A3 paper of a photograph of some fine arts students discussing a sculpture at St Martin’s in 1992. In an act of desperation, the Curator applied for the Art History Masters course. He never heard back from them.
A photograph of a photocopy of a children’s comic printed during the first weeks of the Great War. The comic was the possession of the Curator’s father. If only all wars could be so simple. The Curator draws a line at commenting on international negotiations.
Football has always kindled a creative spark for me. I remember very little about my first games from the 1970s but can vividly remember the atmosphere of pent up rage, hard-bitten humour and machismo. And the “Fauvist”, iridescent green of the pitch.
When young my love of football also found expression through my obsession with kits from the 1920s and 1930s. Why, I wondered, couldn’t the 1970s footballer wear the (to me) much more elegant styles of the inter-war years? During the same time (1977-1983), I was engaged in painting the “Lace War” armies of the C18th Austro-Hungarian Empire. This venture got out of hand very quickly. Somewhere in my parents’ loft marches every regiment that fought at Waterloo (Airfix HO/OO scale figures) and a fair number of figures depicting the terrible opening battles of the First War.
During 2011-12, I returned to examine this thematic link, discovering that there may be more in it than my pre-adolescent whims let on. These are sketches from a day long “draw-in” in Leiden’s then un-renovated Scheltema. The day also saw me down a crate of ale, with the aid of a cheese sandwich. The uniforms are those from all combatant armies of The Great War.
A slightly blurred photograph of a photocopy with drawing and inscription. Here, two North Western crews confront each other: the curator seems to remember that shows Bolton Wanderers fans versus some other bored youths. The text (in byro) is doggerel hot from the frontal lobes of the Photocopier, the soldier (in felt tip liner and a few pencil strokes) is an Italian Bersaglieri rifleman from the 6th regiment, 1915; taken from the excellent Blandford Colour Series title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. The Photocopier likes the fact this photo is slightly blurred; it seems to complement the hurried movement suggested in the hooligan photograph.
A photograph of a photocopy with drawing and inscription. Two police dogs are restrained by their handlers, whilst casual types look on.. The text (in byro) is doggerel but the Photocopier is quietly pleased that his conscience shone through the increasing fug of beer in writing it. The officer (in oil pencil and pencil) is a German pilot officer, Manfred von Richthofen no less, the famous “Red Baron”. The curator has no doubt that the Baron, known for his courtly manners, would have agreed with the sentiment about plastic in the world’s oceans.
A slightly blurred photograph of a photocopy with a quick sketch and inscription. Here, we see a crocodile of casuals walking through some North Western town. The text (in felt tip) is taken from Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962) a book that somehow presaged the football violence of the late 1960s -late 1980s. The head is that of a wearing the famous “Czapka” (in pencil outlined in felt tip) is a Polish Lancer in the service of the Austro-Hungarian army, 1916. Taken from the excellent Blandford Colour Series title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. Again the hasty, off centre nature of the Photocopier’s photograph somehow adds to the essence of the image.
