About the photos
By PATRICK ROWLEY
Photographer and producer
Uncut, unseen, unloved — until now maybe. These are the ‘spares’ that I’ve kept in a cardboard box for nearly 40 years, taken between 1981 and 1987.
The ‘chosen’ 35mm slides ended up going round and round in Kodak Carousel trays, projected in the boardroom to prospective advertisers. They probably faded... and were probably put in a skip when the move from Fleet Street took place.
Initially, I made a three-projector AV for the launch of the Sunday Express Magazine in 1981. (An AV being colour slides synch’d to a soundtrack of music and in this case with tape recorded interviews). This led to my producing AVs over the following years for the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and the Express Newspapers Group.
I interviewed the writers and editors, recorded on quarter inch tape — which I still have somewhere — Jean Rook talking about interviewing John Wayne and John Downing about bombings in Beirut etc.
The Daily Express editors changed four times between 1981 and 1987, so I returned each time to make amendments. In later years (by the mid nineties) I was shooting and making videos... and I have footage of Richard Addis, Sue Douglas and others.
I also produced the Recruitment Advertising Awards and Housebuilder of the Year Awards … events held at The Savoy each year sponsored by Express.
I’d like to mention the unsung heroes in Marketing who arranged my meetings. They are Graham Cartwright, Marketing Director, and in his department — Tony Yolland, Jim Abiss, Iain McClellan, Brian May. Showing me round the printing presses on several occasions was John Edwards. On the Awards I also worked with John Bouffler, Roy Davis and Frank Hampton from the Classified Advertisement department.
I have since produced many awards presentations, conferences and dinners for different organisations, often at the Grosvenor House Hotel… right up to March when everything suddenly stopped.
If you would like to contact Patrick Rowley please write to dailydrone@mail.com and we will give you his email address — Ed
NOW FOR THE PIX