The Story Behind the Photography #3
John Walmsley
Wester Hailes, 1979: The Story Behind the Photograph
In 1979, I was living and working at an arts centre in Hertfordshire, where a wide range of artists had somewhere to live and work. At the same time, I was a part-time lecturer at the AA School of Architecture in London.
Then, the Scottish Arts Council gave me a grant to live for three weeks on the new Wester Hailes housing scheme in Edinburgh. I was there to work with the school students and to wander around the neighbourhood, chatting to and photographing the locals.
Real old-fashioned street photography.
Returning to the Photographs
In 2021, more than 40 years later, I decided to self-publish a book of this material. I wanted to include contributions from people who had been there at the time, either as students or members of staff, so I got in touch with the school, local youth clubs and arts organisations.
Amazingly, I was able to reconnect with many of them and include their memories in the book. Their recollections added another layer to the photographs and helped bring the Wester Hailes of 1979 back to life.
One of the photographs shows a dog standing beside a derelict phone box where children were playing. I used it on the cover of the book.
Not long after the book was published, I received an email from a woman who had recognised the dog. She wrote:
“That was my dog. He was called Snowy and he would wait there every afternoon for me—aged 11 at the time—and my brothers to come out of school.”
For me, this was a wonderful example of the memories that can sit quietly inside a photograph. What might appear to one person to be a dog beside an old phone box was, for someone else, a vivid reminder of her childhood, her brothers and Snowy waiting for them outside school.
The book made several people cry because of the memories it brought back. In my view, that is something documentary photography can do that no other art form can.
My Approach
I like my photos to look as though I just wandered by and went, “Click.”
I want them to be a faithful rendition of what was actually going on, unchanged by the photographer. Of course, photographs that appear this natural and unforced don’t necessarily happen by accident.
I was there for three weeks, so the kids got used to me and were happy with my being around. Spending that amount of time in the neighbourhood meant that I gradually became part of the everyday scene rather than someone who had simply arrived with a camera.
That a photograph comes together so well is partly about giving it time, partly hard work, partly experience and, of course, quite a bit of luck.
Bio:
I have been a professional freelance documentary photographer since leaving art school in 1968.
My work, in one form or another, is held at the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain Library, the National Art Library at the V&A, Young V&A, Liverpool Museum, the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Library at the University of California, San Diego.
I am a member of the National Union of Journalists and the Society of Authors.
You can see more of my work and follow my writing here: