SDPtv.co.uk

­1971

 

At the age of fifteen I had passed my CSE exams, and was studying art part-time at Jacob Kramer Art College in Leeds. My father was in the newspaper industry working as a compositor and with my interest in photography my father persuaded me to become a press photographer.

 

My old school, Coldcotes Senior Boys was not the best of schools but it certainly toughened me up. My headmaster had no idea who I was and had no idea what I was made of. One afternoon I was going to class when I heard him shout Broughton, I looked around and he shouted to me from the far end of the corridor, yes you, in my office now, so I tried to shout back to him that I was not Broughton but he kept interrupting me and telling me to get in his office fast. When I got up to him he was really angry, and I went in to his office still trying to tell him that I was not Broughton, but it was just not working. He went to his filing cabinet and pulled out his cane and telling me to shut up and be quiet then gave me three of the best on each hand. He really thought he had hurt me, but I just looked him in the eye and said, but sir I’m not Broughton, well go tell him I want to see him, now. I never even got an apology.

 

A few weeks later he summonsed me to his office and when I walked in he was sat with the Careers Officer, who was not based at our school and I had never seen him before and he had never seen me. The only information was solely based on my exam results and the Headmaster may have remembered I was not Broughton when he read out my name as I entered.

 

So what do you want to do when you leave school this summer, asked the Careers Officer, I want to be a press photographer I replied, well what about working in a factory, said the Headmaster, no I want to be a press photographer, I replied. Well go away and think about a factory job, said the headmaster, I got up and left the room. That is about how fast it all happened, what seemed to take ten seconds was going to change my whole life,

 

About three weeks later I went for an interview at Photopress Leeds Ltd NUJ, I was interviewed by the proprietor James Waite, I had no portfolio, just three six by four inch black and white pictures I had taken. He was more interested in the fact that I was thinking of going to art college fulltime and that my father worked for the same newspaper some years earlier, the Evening News.

 

A week later I was knocking on the Headmaster’s office door with a letter in my hand, the Headmaster looked rather shocked when I walked in a said, look I have the chance of a job, he asked where, I replied at Photopress as a press photographer and printer, I think that jogged his memory back to my meeting with him and the Careers Officer. I said depending on your reference depends whether I get the job or not, and by the way my names Parker not Broughton, I think that jogged his memory too. So you’ll want to leave school then, he replied, when do you want to go. I said now, went to my class to collect my things and said goodbye to my classmates and never looked back.

 

The real joke behind all this was that my mates who had not left school yet would tell me nearly every Monday morning assembly that the Headmaster or one of the other teachers would announce to the whole school that our former pupil Steven Parker was seen on Match Of The Day or Grandstand, photographing Leeds United, or that I had been seen at the rugby or some other press shoot. The school claiming all the success when they gave me no help whatsoever, only grief, especially the Headmaster ( Benny, out of Top Cat cartoon TV show ) Wilson.

 

As I write this book it is now thirty five years since I took some of these pictures, and like me these pictures have grown old, got a little tatty and worn around the edges. As for Leeds United they are now in the old third division of football and starting this season giving everybody fifteen points start, and all though they have got off to a good start, it is a long season, with very little money and not much hope of getting promotion. Just like Forest and Derby we could find United stuck here for the next twenty odd years.

 

Recently I have had one Heart Attack and was in the throws of another two days later when I decided to go to hospital by bus, and according to the doctors who saved my life I was about twenty minutes from death when I arrived. So since then I have been busy sorting through my life and the memorabilia I have collected. I was rummaging around in my studio when I opened a large trunk with all the old press shots in it. As I write I still haven’t seen everything, that will take another session or two. But I came across the seventies Leeds United shots and decided to copy them into the computer and try and enhance them, or at least preserve them as many of the photo’s were not fixed permanently as they only had to last long enough to get to Manchester, and it was a race against time as well as trying to beat the other press guys for the freelance work. Normally my work would be printed in the News Of The World, and of course the Sun newspaper on the Monday, sometimes I would get the shots in other Sunday and daily nationals, one picture was printed in three Sunday papers and five nationals ran with it on the Monday. Not bad for a Coldcotes School boy.

 

When I look at how these unfixed prints have lasted it seems like a miracle, a few have gone a strange silvery grey and some have brown stains on them. Some of the prints were test prints that I threw in the darkroom bin on the Saturday afternoon before running about a mile down to Leeds railway station to get the prints on the five to six train to Manchester. Sometimes the pictures would end up in Glasgow and we would get a call from the News Of The World asking if we could reprint them and send them over on the next train.

 

Back then we had to leave the game twenty minutes before the end hoping that we had the picture, the winning goal, or that it stayed nil nil. It is easier in this day and age, no film to develop, straight to mobile or laptop, and on the editors desk in an instance. But it is still bloody cold in winter.

 

Tea Cup

 

I had been at Photopress for about three weeks when the head of the darkroom and assistant sports photographer decided to leave. The manager was impressed how fast I had learned to print and Jimmy needed to hang up his camera due to his ill health, he was suffering with Diabetes and Parkinson’s Disease, he couldn’t see very well and his driving was getting scary, as I was about to find out on a number of occasions.

 

So I got promoted and we got a new junior, John Harvey, he was easy to get on with and soon between us we had the running of the place sussed. We used to get up to some crazy things when I was left in charge, and it wasn’t going to be too long before he would be assisting me at football, rugby and other press shoots. We made a good partnership and become pretty good mates out of work. We both loved rock / pop music, John was a Rollin’ Stones fan and I was deeply into T.Rex. On one occasion we gate crashed a Deep Purple gig at Leeds Town Hall, blagging our way in with fake press cards, we got to photograph the band from on the stage.

 

At Elland Road the press room was nothing but a dimly lit room with a couple of old tables against the wall and a big old table in the middle of the floor with a few chairs around it. Normally if you got there early you would get a complimentary match programme and a chair. Normally I would get there early and grab a programme and then go out on to the pitch side and place my little foldable stool at the side of the pitch, we had the NUJ one meter line at either side of each goal where if I was lucky I could place my stool and then get back in the press room to see if there was any programme changes, injuries to players and suspensions. I needed this information in case there was a player I didn’t know or I couldn’t identify. Every picture that you take you need to know who is in that picture, so I would take a shot or sequence and then write down in my note book or on a scrap of paper the numbers of all the players I thought were involved in that photograph. This makes life easier when I got back to the office and after printing the pictures I would need to caption the images.

 

When I first attended Elland Road, the buzz was fantastic and the boss used to have me cover the Cop end while he would take the Shed end, it wasn’t for the advantage of who was going to get the best pictures or anything, it was because I could run faster than Jimmy and grab us both a cup of tea, sandwich, and pork pie each. On the days of the big games there was never enough cups of tea, and you had to be fast to get anything at all in the way of nibbles. Leeds United were a massive club with a full multi-international team. But they were tight with the spread, unlike the little clubs such as Huddersfield Town who used to lay out a banquet in this massive room under the grandstand and allow the press in at half time, on most occasions back then there were only about three of us, me, John, and a radio commentator. I think it was really meant for the teams and their wives for the after match celebrations, but it probably wouldn’t have stayed looking that good if it Elland Road had done the same, not with the press guys acting more like rampaging Vikings.

 

Lots of people used to think that my job was all glitz and bling, but far from it. At the backend of the season the good weather would be coming back and you knew that you would miss the Saturday afternoons at Elland Road, the seat wasn’t very comfortable but it was more times than not the best view of all the goal mouth action. And when the new season kicked off on the end of a warm summer’s afternoon you could be forgiven for forgetting about the coming winter.

 

When the frost came the pitch would be covered in straw and if it snowed they would heap all the straw around the edge of the pitch and that is where the press sit. I came back from Elland Road to the office frozen, drenched, and covered in snow on many occasions over the years. I remember Jimmy saying to me and John that he had puddles in his pockets. John didn‘t come in for a few days cause he went down with cold.

 

Sometimes it would rain or snow all through the game and the ink would run on my caption sheet and my notes would be unreadable, the match programme soggy wet and the pages sticking together. My hands would be so cold that I could not work my fingers. Half time couldn’t come soon enough so I could thaw out over a cup of tea and have a decent fag.

 

We would leave the game before the end of the match and set off back across Leeds to the office at the Merrion Centre. Hopefully George Williamson would be there and have the developers up to temperature and the kettle on, I would process the films in the daylight tanks and stand in front of the electric fire with both bars burning, steam would come off my trousers. I speed fix the film and while it was still slightly milky I would place the films in Metholated Spirits and give them a quick shake and blow them dry with a hair dryer race in to the print darkroom searching for the frame I think I need and do a quick test strip and then go for a full print, nine times out of ten I would nail it first time. I would run several copies off the best shot or two and run through to the office and start typing out the captions. Although by now I was feeling a little warmer if not dryer it was still painful typing with frozen fingers. I would stick the captions on the back of the photographs and run like a madman down to the railway station, flash my press card to the station ticket guy and shout press, Manchester train. They would normally reply platform six you better be quick it is about to leave.

 

I would give the guard on the train the stack of envelopes, all labelled and carrying railway stamps, but this was no guarantee that they would get off the train in Manchester, and sometimes they would end up in Scotland and the News of the World ringing up Jimmy, who would pass the buck on to George to go down to the office and reprint the shots.

 

The idea was that after I met the train I would ring the office and confirm that the pictures were on the train, then somebody at the office would ring each newspaper and tell them to meet the train, some did and some didn’t, so sometimes we would get a few papers running with our shots. The best achievement I had was three Sunday papers and five Daily papers all went with one of my Leeds United pictures.

 

Now and again I would go to the Daily & Sunday Express office and use their wire machine to send images to their newspaper, Barry Henson was their main photographer and he had the wire machine in the room he used for the darkroom, the two just don’t go together, when a picture was on the wire the whole of the room would light up. Once Barry was still printing his Leeds shots when I arrived needing the wire machine, Barry looked at my shot and said he had got five shots of that action using his motor drive, I said I had got four using my thumb, but shot three failed because I had beaten the mirror mechanism and got a blank frame. Barry was an alright guy who used to work for Jimmy when Photopress was on New Station Street, Leeds’s version of fleet street and it was often referred to as little Fleet Street, due to at one time having the Express, Mirror, Photopress, and I think Whinpenny Press, with the Daily Mail and Dorchester Press close by. Barry used to be close friends with John Varley of the Daily Mirror, they seemed to work shoulder to shoulder on most press shoots and hung out together at Elland Road.

 

 

FRIENDS UNITED

Jimmy was a good friend of Don Reevie the Leeds United manager and his assistant, trainer Les Cocker. Once jimmy was trying to print some thing in the darkroom and getting in my way, when the phone rang in the office. I went in to the office and picked up the phone, a voice asked if Jimmy was there, I replied yes and who wants him, the voice replied Don. Not thinking anything more of it I went to the darkroom tunnel and said there’s a done on the phone for you, Jimmy nearly flattened me to get to the phone, he seemed eager, all I heard was yes,yes,yes, alright, bye. Jimmy came out of the office putting on his over coat and trilby hat, I’m going for a round of golf with Don Reevie, see you tomorrow.

 

The team used to come up to the office and have their passport photographs done, one afternoon I heard the shop bell go and when I went in to the shop there were six Leeds United players all staring at me. Wow, some of these guys were living legends, Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter, Johnny Giles. My heroes asking if Jimmy was in, I went into the back office and told Jimmy and he photographed them just like we would for a regular customer he had each player hold up their name printed on a piece of paper for the first shot and then he took another without, this is how we identified customers on their passport pictures, obviously the picture is cropped when printed not to include their name, but as for the Leeds players we knew who they were without the name tags, Cherry, Jordan and Yorath made up the six.

 

Jimmy was an influential man, a Free Mason, director of Headingley Rugby Union, and a director at Sandmoor Golf Club, both played for trophies named after Jimmy Waite. He was a big rugby player in his youth and a very good golfer too, but due to his health problems and his medication he became more reminiscent of Mister Magoo. If Jimmy drank more than a pint of beer it would have adverse reactions with his medication, causing him to be more like somebody who had had ten pints of strong beer. On one occasion on his return from a beer lunch he came into the workshop area and instead of walking into his office he walked into the wall, he fumbled about trying to hang up his coat and sat down in his swivel chair, pulled open the filing cabinet draw to rest his right arm on, placed his left foot up on to the typewriter desk, his left leg on to his desk and started chatting to somebody on the phone. Unfortunately Jimmy lent too far back and the springy back rest caused the chair to move on it’s castors and somehow Jimmy ended up falling into the bottom draw of the filing cabinet with the little tin litter bin on his foot. I had to lock myself in the loo while I stopped laughing.

 

HUNTER and HUNTED

 

I suppose it was only a matter of time before I got my moments of fame. At the shed end of the pitch in front of a large home crowd and broadcasted highlights on television later that evening, I was left with egg on my face, or should I say Hunter on my face.

 

As the ball was going out of play about level with the six yard box markings, Norman ’bite your legs Hunter’ lept over the top of my head as I sat on my little canvas seated fishing stool. He managed to head the ball back in to the goal mouth but the linesman signalled that the ball had gone out of play. Like a true sports journalist I never wanted to miss anything and I followed Hunter’s leap as he jump upwards but he came crashing down on me and bust my lower lip with his boot. He rubbed my head and said sorry ‘r kid and ran off back down field. Luckily in them days they didn’t have as many television cameras as in this day and age, but it did get a couple replays. I soon got used to this kind of thing, especially at rugby union matches where it was easy to get mixed up in the play. I have a couple of shots where the rugby ball is heading straight for my camera lens.

 

Another shot I have of a Big Jack Charlton goal mouth incident where he had committed himself to a diving header and the defender manages to deflect the ball straight at me, I headed it back across goal but I was ruled offside by the referee.

 

My big clanger was that as a kid I was picked to play centre half for my junior school team, so I pretended to be Big Jack that afternoon as I watched nine of my team mates chase the ball in a pack, that only left me and our goalkeeper to try and save the day, we got hammered that day five goals to nil, but we managed to go the rest of the season without losing a match, mind you didn’t play another game that season.

 

Big Jack was always going to be my hero, every time I got picked for a team I either played goalie or centre half, now and again out on the left wing. So one afternoon on my return from Elland Road, Jimmy’s first question was did you get the Charlton goal ? No, I replied, he scored from way outside the box and he was on my blindside, but I got the celebration shots after the goal. Good he replied. That Sunday the game was televised and I watched the game thinking that I might have got away with my excuse, but when it came to the Charlton goal it was like I was spotlighted in front of the camera. Big Jack volleys the ball straight in to the net from twenty odd yards, a dream of a goal.

 

Unfortunately from the three different camera angles all I could see was a very clear image of me, with my almost waist length hair, leaping up in the air with my right fist clinched punching the air. We got the shot in slow motion and replayed from a different angle, well hopefully the boss won’t be watching, or he might have missed the goal. For all those that did miss the goal and the instant replays had no need to worry because at the end of the programme it finished with the only goal of the match, if that wasn’t bad enough they froze the shot of me leaping up of my seat, fisting the air.

 

Next day at work and Jimmy arrived midmorning as usual and as he walked in turned and commented to me, ‘I saw the game, see what you meant about not getting the goal‘. To this day I still believe he thought I couldn’t have got the angle, or the shot off in time, but I wish I had tried because my hero would never score another one like it, it really was a one in a lifetime goal.

 

And for the inquisitive, yes the pictures of Charlton celebrating with his team mates, a slap on the back from captain Billy was printed in the News of the World, so nothing lost on that side of things.

 

Yes, I did learn a big lesson from these bloomers. To duck faster and / or get out of the way quicker after snatching the shot. Also to be more aware of the players and officials around me.

 

I remember up at Headingley, Leeds R.L as they were known back then, one of Jack Hick’s lads had come from photographing a wedding and was in his best suit he looked a right toff running around the edge of the pitch, dressed like a young James Bond. It was really muddy and slippery too, I was dressed in my warm dry scruffs and hiking boots. A scrum was taking place along the sideline so Jack Hick’s lad crouched down one side of the linesmen, I crouched down to the other side. The linesman was looking into the scrum when suddenly the ball was knocked out of the scrum and the linesman turned to run down the sideline and knocked Jack’s lad over in the mud. What a mess he looked covered in mud down one side from head to foot.