Henry and John are standing on Tooley Street, London Bridge. “Can I take your photo?” Henry says yes. John says no. “He doesn’t want to be in the photo because he used to be a professional photographer,” says Henry. “He worked at The Times for years.” I ask John: “So don’t you like photos?” “Yes, …
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Experiments in street photography
I love street photography, especially portraiture. I’ve taken candid shots of people before and caught some interesting moments. But I’ve never gone up to a stranger and asked them if I can take their photo. The main obstacle was fear, I think. What if they said no? Plus there’s that innate English awkwardness: who am I to go …
Adding a little bit of happiness
This is Mick. He runs a South London charity called the Furzedown Project. Its mission is to prevent loneliness among the elderly. Mick organises activities like singing groups, knitting circles and exercise classes. He’s 56 and has been at Furzedown for the last seven years. “It’s a nice place to work,” he says. “I come …
“They’ve got nothing like this in Morden”
This is Betty. I met her recently at an old folks club in Tooting, run by a charity that tackles isolation among the elderly. She was singing music hall songs. I told her I live in Kent. “We used to go down to Kent a lot,” she said. “My mother loved it when the apple …
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“They called me the Maharaja”
On a visit to the Imperial War Museum with another tiny charity, South London Cares, I met Oun. He arrived in London from India in 1962 with £5 in his pocket and a selection of his mum’s jewels around his neck. “They called me the Maharaja,” he said. Walking around the museum and eating a …
When Bob gets up to sing
They were singing Christmas Carols down at the old folks’ drop-in centre in Tooting on Wednesday afternoon. Quality variable. Then Bob, 81, who’d just been mumbling along until that point, steps up and offers to sing a solo. Oh, gawd. This will be awkward. But he opens his mouth and out comes a beautiful music hall ballad, …
“Every day I hear about extraordinary ways people survive”
The woman in this photo is Sheila Melzak, a psychotherapist. She runs the Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile, a charity that helps child refugees. Specifically, her organisation works with children who have fled violence abroad, dreamed of finding sanctuary here in Britain, and somehow made it into the country on their own. These …
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“I became part of his story”
The guy in the photo above is Mohammed Mamdani. He runs a community food bank on the St Raphael’s Estate in Brent, North West London. It’s called Sufra, a Persian word. The literal definition is of a tablecloth or rug – one you spread on the ground when people eat together. But the word also …
“People can come together and make things happen”
[A story of mine for The London Community Foundation] The closure of their local library shocked the St James Street community. But out of the ashes they are building something incredible… In April 1997 Alison Griffin, three-months pregnant and with a toddler in tow, took a two-week holiday in Libya. When she got home, she …
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How a simple ‘what if?’ question is helping Hackney kids do better in school
[A story I wrote for The London Community Foundation…] Lots of great ideas start with a simple “what if…?” question. For Catriona Maclay, the moment came when she was talking with friends over dinner. As a secondary school teacher in North London, she’d noticed how easily young people could fall behind in their studies. Catriona …
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