From the archives 1 (1984)

The day has been entirely damp, chilly and misty. We had thought of driving over to the East coast but this definitely was not the day to do that.

So, instead, I've made a start on something I've been meaning to do for months: going through the folders and boxes of old slides and negatives that are stacked up in my study, and deciding whether any of it is worth digitising.  

These two shots were taken at Appleby Horse Fair in early summer 1984, when I was working with Traveller communities in Sheffield, running a playbus for Traveller children.  So I went to Appleby with some of the families I'd been working with, along with other staff from the local Traveller support and education project, which was funded at that time by Save the Children.

Appleby was a revelation. For those few days of the fair, Travellers were no longer a marginalised minority but a strong, confident and bustling presence. Since those days my views on horse care have changed completely; much of what I saw then would disturb me now, in terms of animal welfare, just as much of the routine treatment of domesticated horses in general in the UK disturbs me now. But back in 1984, that was not uppermost in my mind.

Some of what's in all those boxes is good to have for family memories. There's a lot of duplication: plenty of scope for pruning.  And there are some early attempts at documentary photography on my part, at a time when I really was quite clueless. I knew what I wanted to capture, but I really didn't know how to get the best out of my much-loved Olympus OM1.  There were many more misses than hits.  Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the lucky dip experience with the boxes.