Summer of '69

floppybootstomp

sugar 'n spikes
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Some old black and white pictures from my archive. These were taken one warm summers night in Fleet Street, City Of London. Here, I was undergoing my training initially as a ‘Copy Boy’ eventually leaving the agency as a trainee court reporter after spending some time covering the proceedings at Kingston Magistrates Court.

I joined the Agency late 1968 and left and joined a local paper in November 1969 and at first I had to read the copy (stories) the reporters brought in by telephone over to the copy-takers on the six National Newspapers which at the time included The Daily Sketch. I also had to run pictures and rolls of film round to those newspapers’ picture desks.

At the time these pictures were taken I was doing the night shift 23:00 to 07:00 and from 02:00 to 06:00 I was on my own just manning the phones in case any of the 2 London evening papers or any of the Nationals wanted a story covering in which case I’d either head there myself or call out a reporter and maybe a photographer if needed.

I had an old car at the time and travelled around London but all I ever covered were some fires, traffic accidents and on a couple of occasions, attempted suicides.

These pics were taken around 01:00 and show myself, trainee photographer Paul and reporter Alan Woodcock being a bit silly. I’ve included all of them and some are out of focus and some have less than ideal exposures but they’re all here, warts and all. A snapshot of time, perhaps.

I don’t know what the camera was but it’s before I had the Pentax or Nikon so it’s possibly a Praktica, which was my first SLR.
I have a few tales from those times which I may relate, they may be of interest, I’m not sure.

Anyhow, without further ado, some old pictures plus a couple of random images.

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Kathy & Peter at my Ladywell Flat, 1969 or 1970. Kathy became a Playboy Bunny at Park Lane and Peter went on to form The Only Ones:

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Stage left at The Fox Under The Hill Pub, Shooters Hill Road, SE London early 1970:

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nivrip

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Are those hot pants I see on the final pic?

Or is 1970 a trifle too early?
 

floppybootstomp

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Are those hot pants I see on the final pic?

Or is 1970 a trifle too early?

I dunno. It hadn't occurred to me to question the nature of the young ladies' apparel.

They could be couldn't they? Tell you what, if you want them to be hot pants then they are - how's that? :)

I posted these here as I take part in an audio forum and some members there have recently got into analogue photography including developing their own black and white film so I posted these on that forum. Had to trim them down from 4416 to 800 pixels so I thought whilst I'd made the effort I may as well post them here.

I got loads more.

Caption, left to right: Lynn - came from well off family, married me mate Phil, divorced him, became a nurse and thereafter lived a frugal life; Karen, soon after this pic taken went to Lucy Clayton Modelling school and became a model, currently living in Gravesend; Next along with long dark hair - have forgotten her name but she wanted to go out with me but I said no - if I knew then what I know now etc etc...; At the front me mate Chris; Some South African fella with the pint beer jug whose name I forget and in the stripey top is Wendy, who at the time was going out with me mate Richard.
 

nivrip

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They could be couldn't they? Tell you what, if you want them to be hot pants then they are - how's that? :)

Well, I'll be more than happy for them to be hot pants. Always liked them on the right people. :D
 

crazylegs

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First thing that came into my head whilst viewing the photo's Mr Flopp's was "Hey hey we're the Monkee's, people say we monkey around" :lol:
 

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