Every Sunday, I contact photographers previously featured on PHOTOSNACK and ask them to send me their spontaneous thoughts, observations, reflections, or advice.
Today, I am sharing the message I received from Syd Shelton.
Syd Shelton
1979. Years after making this image, the guy on the right sent me this:
"I remember this photo being taken very well. Being almost resident at The Last Resort punk and skinhead shop on Goulston Street, Petticoat Lane in the late 70s and early 80s, we were used to being approached and asked for photographs to be taken. On this particular day, I recall Syd speaking with either Mickey or Margaret (the shop owners), and them then asking if any of us were up to having a few pics taken. Kevin McGrath and I - both Spurs supporters - agreed (for free! - that was uncommon; we usually fleeced tourists who requested the same!).
As we were walking towards the location, Syd mentioned ‘Socialism’ in some context or other, and me - being a victim of the insidious extreme right-wing propaganda of the times that had taken root among the disenfranchised, white working-class - gave out in what I believed at the time to be quite the intellectual, that “the only true Socialism is National Socialism “. I really thought I’d played a trump card with this, and was quite pleased with myself.
But here’s the rub: it so happened that I came from a long line of trade union activism, with my family deeply involved in fighting the injustices the local dock owners meted down to its workers, both permanent and casual. Many of my relatives houses were ad hoc meeting rooms, and I learned quite early - at the feet of those involved - of the dangers of Capitalism, fascism, and of the racism that was endemic throughout the docks.
Further to this, it would have shocked many of my fellow skinheads had they known that my maternal grandmother was mixed race (at that time the term would have been ‘quarter-caste’), making my mother one 8th Jamaican, and by extension, me one 16th. My great, great grandfather was one John Cooper Innes, of Westmorland, Jamaica, who came to England as a free man in the late 1800s, and met and married my great, great grandmother, before then settling in the East End.
Within 2 years of this photo being taken, I’d become a highly politicised Socialist, ANL, anti-Apartheid activist, who looked back embarrassedly on a couple of misspent years, playing the role of ‘rebel without a clue’. My conversation with Syd often came to mind in the interim years, before the internet brought this (and many other) photo(s) to my attention.
All this from a single photograph."
Lee Winston Daley
Sad Shelton was featured in PHOTOSNACK #621.
Sunday Editions connect you with photographers whose work you previously explored through PHOTOSNACK.
I want to reveal some authentic parts of the people behind the cameras. I don't ask them any specific questions. I ask them to share whatever comes to mind when they think about YOU, the newsletter readers. It makes their responses genuine and personal.
Until next time,
Tomasz
This narrative is wonderful. He beautifully answered what you requested: what's going on in the mind of Syd Shelton. How this story came together is simply amazing: the two levels of time, how the artist and the subject are once again brought together, and how this moment in time, seemingly, is remembered by both as an intimate event for both!
What a great story and super context for a super photograph! Thank you. Who says people can't change...