40 Years of Richmond

The winter of 1962 which was the coldest recorded since 1747. I had joined the Royal Signals and reported to Catterick Camp in early January for basic military training. At 18, little did I realise that over the next 10 weeks what is normally a hard life was to be made even harder by 2-3 foot snowdrifts everywhere.

Our drill instructors did not care that our boots and kit was sodden at the end of every day, the following morning we were expected to turn out in immaculately pressed uniforms with our boots gleaming. For four weeks we saw only the inside of our barrack room, the drill square (after we had cleared the snow), the inside of the weapon training hut and if we had the time and energy after pressing and polishing our uniforms and barrack room floor maybe the inside of the NAAFI.

At the end of the first four weeks if you had not been caught breaking the rules you earned a weekend pass, which meant that you were allowed of camp during the day, although you did have to be back in barracks by midnight. For those of you who know the area this meant that there were only two options, Darlington or Richmond. In reality Richmond was the obvious choice as even if you missed the last bus back you could get always get a taxi or if you had drunk all your money stagger the four and a half miles back to your bed.In spite of the fact that most of the weekend was spent inside the many pubs in Richmond, the brief periods of staggering transit between them was enough for me to become totally enamored with the place. It had the castle, the river, cobbles, churches and narrow streets.

Once I had survived my basic training to become a soldier i.e. marching, shooting and digging holes in the Yorkshire Dales as well as swilling beer, I moved on to do my trade training. I was then taught the basics of electronics, soldering and how to fix the army's most advanced computer equipment. Almost exactly a year after I had arrived in Catterick, I was posted to 259 Signal Squadron in Cyprus as a brand new Class III Electronics Technician with a single stripe on my uniform.

It was at Episkopi that I purchase my first camera an Ilford Sportsman and then later a Yashica Mat TLR and my love affair with photography began. Unfortunately I have no 35mm negatives from this period and only a few of my 120 format negatives, they nearly all disappeared when I returned to Catterick on an upgrade course to class II technician. Those that remain will almost inevitably appear on this website.

I returned to Catterick again in 1967 when I was posted in as a trade training instructor. My role in life was to teach new and upgrade technicians how the army’s latest electronic equipment worked and how to fix it. This gave me more time to explore Richmond and start taking these photographs. It was also here that I met my future wife and I sold my beloved Yashica so that I could afford to take her out.

We married in 1969 and moved to S.H.A.P.E. in Belgium where my trusty Sportsman was replaced by a Yashica Minister D. Once I finished my tour in Belgium and rejoined civilian life our trips to Richmond every May for the Whit Meet became an annual family event. My wife's parents live at 21 The Green hence the many pictures of the Castle from The Green, The Green itself and particularly number 21. My mother-in-law passed away in 1978 and my father-in-law in 1997 and the house was sold.

Such is the attraction of the town and its surrounding countryside we still return regularly and I never get tired of photographing the same things as they change. My cameras have changed as well through Yashica, Pentax and Canon film SLRs to my current digital pair a Canon 10D and a Pentax K10D. To date the pictures only cover up to the year 2000, but there are more to come!!