Discussion
In early April of 1978 I was 19 and had recently quit my job as a Juke box and slot machine apprentice service tech with Northern music distributors in Leeds .I was feeling blue and generally unhappy, my new job was rebuilding slot machines for Carfield a slot machine manufacturer in Leeds, working at a bench …being stuck in one place is not the best for my particular nature. My usual weekend (and often midweek) routine was to go into Wakefield and tour the pubs .. this particular Saturday I wandered around aimlessly not enjoying things even with the beer, my last stop was a new pub “The Spaniard” where I ran into my friend John Lunn who I hadn’t seen for the last year or so, he told me he had been living in St Ives in Cornwall and if I was wanting a change he was driving back the next morning and they had room for one extra … I went home and packed, woke up my Mum and Dad and told them I was leaving the next day, they thought I was drunk (I was😊) I left the next morning and lived in St Ives for the next 6 years. The photographs in this piece I captured during my last trip to England in 2007, l spent several days in St Ives and then on to Yorkshire to see family and then to York to attend a Nelsonica convention it was a wonderful trip all round. I have more of an affinity with St Ives than I do with my home in Yorkshire and have to mention a rather serendipitous connection that emerged for me. When I first arrived in St Ives and was exploring the town I came upon the pub “the sloop” which is a landmark in the town,it struck me as oddly familiar and I had no clue as to why but it felt like I had been there before (I hadn’t) after my first summer in St Ives I returned home to my parents house in Wakefield and hanging on the wall are two small original watercolors which they were given by my dads parents …one of them is the sloop pub painted in 1952 …I have included this in the piece, those two paintings now hang on my wall here in Northern Nevada .
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