A lovely afternoon for John’s wake at Ossett Cricket Club, looking out across the Calder Valley.
John’s Wake
Category: People
The Hospice Team
I’m aiming for a fairly generic version of the hospice staff but inevitably the individual characters keep asserting themselves.
A Field Guide to Hospice Staff
A guide to hospice staff for a project that I’m working on. Agency staff have their own uniforms, so I’ll probably add a few of those too.
The Ages of Man
Barbara’s brother John had a starring role in an ‘ages of man’ illustration I drew for Dorling Kindersley, which, as far as I remember, never made it into print. Also appearing, John’s oldest son Peter and his younger brothers Simon and Richard.
For the older versions of John I photographed his dad Bill.
It’s so easy to take a reference photograph on you phone these days but back in 1994 I had a print film from a trip to Scotland to finish off and I took it in to one of several processing shops in town and went for extra large prints.
It would have been so much easier with digital photography and you might think, what a shame that John’s performance on the guitar wasn’t recorded as a video clip along with the song but in reality he couldn’t play a note.
John and Margaret
We’re looking through old albums, putting together a short book of memories of Barbara’s brother John. Going back to the pre-digital 1960s, 70s and 80s are plenty of groups at parties, children standing on lawns and a couple of formal wedding groups, but for me the stand out images are by the street photographers in seaside towns.
The close up of John and Margaret reminds me of films from the Swinging Sixties such as Michael Winner’s The System, where Oliver Reed plays a seaside street photographer, but we need John on his own on the cover, so we’re going for another seaside town photograph.
The original of this photograph is small and in black and white but I couldn’t resist using Photoshop’s colourisation neural filter on it. I think that it’s worked well here.
Although Barbara has just pointed out that Margaret’s pink cardigan has one yellow sleeve. I better correct that.
Remembering John
Remembering John Morrisey, the lovely, larger-than-life neighbour of Barbara’s brother John, who died suddenly yesterday morning. Barbara’s brother John died early on Saturday morning, after 3 months in Pontefract Hospice that was expected, but the death of his neighbour John a few days later came as a shock.
Apeman
Thanks to Allan, James and Tom for their acoustic version of Apeman by The Kinks, accompanied by Rick on bongos. Special guest appearance from Ian.
More Trees at the Hospice
We accompanied Barbara’s brother John in a wheelchair on a circuit of the Hospice grounds this morning.
Oova Matique
On our walk via the canal and river to the Coffee Stop this morning: one drake goldeneye, 42 grazing wigeon, a pair of oystercatchers and, by the Navigation Inn, Rachel Modest – The Voice semi-finalist and leader of the Wakefield Community Gospel Choir – making a music video, assisted by vocalist and former roadie (to, amongst many others, The Smiths, David Bowie and Russell Watson) Oova Matique.
Links
Rachel Modest on Facebook
Anonymous Groove Live Sessions on YouTube
Street Kitchen
The fast food at the Falafel Street Kitchen was a tad too fast for me and this was as far as I was able to get in sketching the customers.
Luckily the pace at the Nats’ AGM was a little more sedate. Even so, these days we get through the business side of the evening in a little over fifteen minutes.