Striking Guardian images show extended
DIFFICULT as it is to believe, the Guardian newspaper has had only eight staff photographers working in the north of England in the last 100 years.
One of these was Don McPhee, a man who compellingly captured key social and political events – including the miners’ strike and Nelson Mandela’s release from prison – during more than 35 years with the paper, where he worked until he died from lost his battle with cancer last year.
So successful has the exhibition opened in his honour at The Lowry – A Long Exposure: 100 Years Of Pictures From Guardian Photographers In Manchester - been, it has now been extended until March 22.
He and his former colleague, Denis Thorpe, started to put together the show last year after Don found a box of discarded photographs taken by the Guardian’s very first photographer, Walter Doughty.
“The boxes were left for the skip and Don rescued them,” says Denis as we talk about the background to the exhibition. “There were glass plate negatives and on closer examination we discovered they were the photographs of the Guardian’s very first photographer.”
Walter joined the paper back in 1908, and Don saw the opportunity to celebrate both Mr Doughty’s work and the work of those who followed him with a centenary show. And so they raided the archives, gathering together examples from the other photographers that came before and after them.
Tom Stuttard joined Walter in 1925 and worked for the paper in Manchester until 1936, when he was dispatched to London because it was felt “the paper had too many photographers”, laughs Denis.
Claim to fame
“Mr Stuttard’s claim to fame was that he was at the Heston Aerodrome when Neville Chamberlain returned to the UK after signing the Munich peace agreement with Adolf Hitler declaring ‘Peace for our time’,” says Denis.
Famously, war broke out the following day.
War forced Stuttard back up north, where he captured images of Blitz-torn Manchester.
From 1956, onwards, the Guardian roster included Robert Smithies, Graham Finlayson, Neil Libbert, Don McPhee, Denis Thorpe and, in 2007, Christopher Thomond.
Looking at the plates, Don says that Walter was a tough act to follow. He captured images of the Irish civil war with a primitive camera and each plate took minutes to load.
But the team certainly rose to the challenge, snapping German prisoner of war camps and war-torn landscapes, as well as the century’s most recognisable performers and politicians, including playwright Arthur Miller, ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, Ulster Unionist MP Enoch Powell at a Belfast rally and Winston Churchill visiting Manchester.
Speaking about his own time at the paper, Denis recalls his assignment to the Strangeways prison siege with particular clarity.
“It started at night and all the helicopter searchlights were overhead,” he recalls. “They are incredible moody pictures.”
As are his shots of hostage Brian Keenan, who Denis pictured shortly after his release from Beirut.
“The Guardian had a way of trying to make witty comments with their photographs,” says Denis, who retired in 1998. “Don was a master at it. I was determined this show would happen for him.”
The exhibition runs until Sunday, March 22, 2009. The Lowry, Salford. Free.
Published: Tue, 24 February, 2009
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